158 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



Helleborus fcetidus, L., so conspicuous on the wooded 

 uplands. A far rarer English plant, confined, indeed, 

 to a single locality in the county of Dorset, is the 

 beautiful vernal snowflake (Leucojum vernum, L.). In 

 appearance it is like a large snowdrop, marked on the 

 edges of the pure white petals with touches of green. 

 I had noticed bunches of this delicate spring flower in 

 the Vevey market and had learnt that it grew wild in 

 the neighbourhood. On 2Qth February, in the romantic 

 Gorge du Chauderon, which runs from Les Avants down 

 to Montreux, I at length saw the plant in its native 

 home. At one spot, in the deepest part of the gorge, 

 where the cataract thunders below, and far above just 

 a streak of blue sky appears, the lovely snowflake 

 occupied the almost perpendicular face of the rock. It 

 was a situation worthy of the species. Long festoons 

 of ivy hung from the deep crevasses ; here and there 

 in the wide, gaping fissures a sapling of birch or yew 

 managed to maintain a hold ; the wall of rock was 

 green with emerald moss or fronds of hart's-tongue fern, 

 and there, in an almost inaccessible position, the colony 

 of snowflakes flourished. The flowers were past their 

 prime, but the sight was not one easily to be forgotten. 

 The Daphne Mezereum, L., with fragrant pink flowers 

 appearing before the leaves early in the spring, has long 

 been a favourite shrub of mine. It is very rare as a 

 wild plant in England, although it is not infrequently 

 seen in cottage gardens. I searched for it in vain for 

 many years, until at last I came across several fine 

 plants in a Hampshire wood. Some flowering twigs 

 of this handsome shrub I also noticed for sale in the 

 Vevey market, and the peasant woman assured me 

 that the plant was wild and grew in some damp woods 



