DECEMBER 316 



the snowdrop distils free nectar, and the snowflake has 

 none. There seems to be no reason why the snowflake 

 should not be established as freely in our woodlands as 

 the snowdrop; it is already naturalised in Dorsetshire. 

 Probably it would be equally immune from the almost 

 omnivorous rabbit, though I have not yet proved this. 

 Anyhow, garden-lovers who have not got it should hasten 

 to obtain it, in a growing state if possible, much dis- 

 appointment arising from imported bulbs, which soon 

 lose their vitality when kept out of the ground. The 

 variety called Carpathicum is richer and more vigorous 

 than the type, often producing a couple of blossoms on 

 each stalk. The spring snowflake flowers about three 

 weeks later than the snowdrop, towards the end of 

 January, in ordinary seasons, but is much more liable 

 to be retarded by frost. In hard winters the display 

 is delayed till March. [N.B. Don't confound the 

 spring with the summer snowflake (Leucoium cestivum), 

 a plant of inferior grace, producing flowers very similar 

 to the other in May, on stalks a foot or eighteen inches 

 high.] 



Intermediate in time between the snowdrop and snow- 

 flake comes the whiter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), 

 raising its golden cup, exquisitely fringed with a green 

 ruff, only some three inches above the soil. What it 

 lacks in stature it makes up in abundance of flowers. 

 Unlike the snowdrop, it is more commonly naturalised 

 in the eastern counties than in the west. I may never 

 forget the charming surprise received by a display of 

 winter aconites in a Lincolnshire wood. I was hunting, 

 many years ago, with the Cottesmore hounds, and had 



