146 HAMPSHIRE STREAMS AND WOODLANDS 



tree and shrub to be found in the southern counties is 

 in its full raiment of young and tender leaf. Even 

 the ashes have burst their black buds, and the flower- 

 clusters hang like bunches of keys thick upon the 

 branches. The maples are in flower ; the cotton buds 

 of the broad-leafed willow are rolling on the paths 

 before the wind ; the young oak-leaves are crisp and 

 curling ; the ground-oaks show clusters of longer leaves 

 of flesh-colour and green ; the white-beam glistens with 

 grey and silver, and flat white flowers ; the beech-buds 

 have dropped their brown night-caps, and the sun has 

 smoothed out the creases ; the elm branches are covered 

 with almost summer drapery, and the senses are at 

 once stirred and soothed by the ripple of the light air 

 over the foliage, and the fresh smell of young green 

 leaves. Beneath the timber-trees the copse- wood grows 

 so strangely thick and strong, that a hundred stems 

 seem to spring from every crown, and arching upwards 

 and outwards, meet and overlap to form a continuous 

 roof of clustering foliage, various in kind, but alike in 

 strength and vigour. In the low lanes beneath, 

 cloistered by this natural canopy, stretches in endless 

 lines the flower-garden of the forest. Every foot of 

 ground between the tree-stems and coppice-clusters is 

 set thick with dark-blue hyacinths ; and if we stoop 

 and look up the long corridors between the thickets, 

 with roofs so low that nothing larger than a fox could 

 thread them, the distance merges into a level sheet of 

 purple. Over hills and valleys, banks and glens, the 

 hyacinths spread, with no difference in number or size, 



