JUNE 127 



from most species of which it is very distinct in aspect. 

 Such is the kind of snare which modern classification 

 spreads for the amateur. Besides the wood hyacinth, 

 the British flora boasts of two other squills the 

 autumnal squill and the vernal. About the first, the 

 present writer had best be silent, never having seen 

 it, for it only appears in some of the southern English 

 counties, after ranging through the rocky places of 

 southern Europe, from the Caucasus to the Sierra 

 Nevada, and so up the west coast of France, having 

 just established a footing in perfidious Albion, when 

 its retreat was cut off by the formation of the Channel. 



But the other, the spring squill (Scilla verna), is a 

 joy at this season to dwellers on our western seaboard. 

 It is of lowly stature, its leaves closely spread star- 

 wise on the ground, and its short, close spikes of pale 

 blue flowers just raised from one inch to three inches 

 above the wind-swept turf of the sea-cliffs. What it 

 lacks in height it makes up in multitude, growing in 

 far-spreading colonies like its woodland cousin, and 

 imparting a modest grace to the stunted herbage. 



We ransack all the ends of the earth for exotics to 

 deck our parterres withal, pay long bills for bulbs from 

 foreign parts, and no doubt get very good value for our 

 money ; but it is amusing sometimes when a visitor 

 to one's garden pauses to admire a flower which he does 

 not recognise, though it happens to be a native, and not 

 a rare one. The spring squill is one that I have never 

 seen in any private garden save my own. It invariably 

 attracts attention when in flower, for a few bulbs dug 

 up years ago have spread into large clumps, and the 



