PRECOCIOUS KEW 457 



them into brighter blue. Saxifrage gems its lime- 

 stone with wide white flowers, pigmy daffodils of 

 astonishing yellow are an inch long in the tube on 

 inch-high stalks, soldanella and primula, adonis, butter- 

 bur, and a daily increasing host force the pace of 

 spring in this weather-resisting defile. 



The hill on which the storks nest has first to cover 

 itself with daffodils, after which it has other effects to 

 produce throughout the summer. A few days ago all 

 the daffodils pointed their folded buds to the sky. 

 Now they are nearly all pendulous, and hundreds of 

 them open. In a slight breeze they dance and fling 

 their golden skirts as only daffodils can, and it seems 

 as though at each sweep of the wind there are more 

 of them that have unkirtled and joined the dance. 

 Perhaps the secret of Kew's early luxuriance is 

 caught here, for the ground is pierced so thickly with 

 shoots that the contribution of the earliest blossom 

 from each clump furnishes the effect of a general crop. 

 In the open beds, comparatively wind-swept, there are 

 primulas nearly as precocious as in the dell. Large 

 trusses of close-packed mauve flowers are opening as 

 complacently as though it were May, whereas the sun- 

 shine only makes it bearable for about three hours 

 each day and the rest is bitter March. This is Prim- 

 ula denticulata, a most useful spring flower. We look 

 in vain for lungwort, which has the knack of doing 

 very well in London, and is now opening on a colder 

 soil than this its blue and purple cowslip-like flowers. 



Not even this strong array of groundling blossoms 

 nor the smoking branches of the yew tree, nor the 

 rosy-blossomed elms can prepare us for the shock of 

 spring that awaits us in the rhododendron walk. The 



