298 Spring Nooks in Winter 



attain the uninterrupted winter life of true ever- 

 greens varies with the richness of the flora in any 

 district, as well as with the general mildness of 

 its climate. Foxgloves are almost confined to 

 soils of grit, gravel, or sand ; and their clusters 

 of young green leaves, nestling among the sprawling 

 and tattered foliage of the bygone summer, are 

 seldom found in the chalkpits, which give the 

 shelter of a natural greenhouse to so many winter 

 plants. Primroses will grow on many soils ; and 

 even on the level floor of woods in the Surrey and 

 Sussex clay they find sufficient shelter among 

 fallen boughs and tangled brambles to unfold minute 

 leaves, and often blossoms, from autumn onwards. 

 Tufts of nettle sprout vividly by early February 

 among the old, bleached stems ; and though their 

 poison seems half asleep, they can feebly sting. 

 Dog's mercury is the earliest plant to spread a 

 vivid green carpet in the copses ; in December, or 

 even in sunny autumns, it pricks up its first dwarf 

 tufts on sheltered banks. It often grows on the 

 northward bank of a lane which never sees the sun, 

 if it is sheltered by the opposite slope from cutting 

 winds ; and though its early growth in such sunless 

 places seems surprising, it is not hard to explain. 

 Like the other early plants, the dog's mercury 

 is lowly of stature ; and it finds the freest space 

 for its development in places where the ground 

 is not choked with the ruins of the previous summer, 

 as it is on a southward slope. 



In the sheltered places, where the tangle of dead 

 stems lies thick through winter, it is sometimes 



