8 Spring Flowers. 



nary treatment. If sown in a rich garden-border in August, and protected 

 with a few dry leaves or a little coarse hay during winter, they will bloom 

 abundantly in early spring and throughout the season. 



Of the violets which bloomed here last spring, the earliest and the most 

 profuse in flowering was a single ever-blooming variety lately introduced. 

 Early in April, the ground was blue with its countless blossoms ; and it 

 blooms again in October, filling the surrounding air with fragrance. The 

 double white violet, the double blue English, and the Neapolitan, ought all 

 to be cultivated, as nothing is easier than their ordinary management ; and 

 the little care they require cannot be better bestowed. Another pretty 

 variety is Viola bicolor, striped with blue and white. There is a native 

 violet, the Canadian, — Viola Canadeiisis^ — which, though single, is of 

 remarkable beauty. This, with our other wild violets, white, blue, yellow, 

 and straw-color, is well worth a place in the garden of early flowers. 

 They grow readily, and usually bloom better than in their native woods or 

 meadows. 



April 1 8. — Erythronium dens canis, the European dog-tooth violet. 

 Though this is one of the bulbs, we notice it because it is so little known. 

 It has no resemblance whatever to a true violet. Its ordinary color is a 

 reddish-purple ; but there is a white variety. It is as large as a crocus, 

 and extremely ornamental. Our American yellow dog-tooth violet is very 

 shy of flowering in the garden ; but its foreign relative blooms without 

 reserve. Both are remarkable for the peculiar mottled appearance of their 

 leaves. 



April 19. — Fiil/nonaria officinalis and Pulmonaria mollis. These plants, 

 commonly called lungwort, are very pretty both in foliage and flowers. 

 The leaves, especially those of the last-named species, are curiously 

 blotched and marbled ; and the flowers are of changing colors, from bright 

 pink to sky-blue. They are of low growth, and the foliage retains its 

 freshness throughout the summer and autumn. They are very hardy. 



The saxifrages of various species come into bloom at this time. Saxi- 

 fraga trassifolia and Saxifraga cordifolia are amongst the most showy, 

 with their broad, smooth, succulent leaves, and their masses of pink flowers 

 rising to the height of two feet or more. The Cynoglossuni, or hound's- 

 tongue, with its small flowers of vivid blue close to the earth, is also in 



