68 FEBRUARY 



in November and in January, the honeysuckle always 

 buds soon after New Year s Day ; and nowadays exotic 

 and (C made &quot; plants, such as heath and rhododendron, 

 decorate the winter garden with bright flashes. In the 

 deep, well-sheltered rock garden at Kew we may find 

 tiny flowers (which are more precocious than the big : 

 witness the minimus daffodil) as early in the year as we 

 think of visiting that delectable land, and, to ease our 

 ignorance, a thoughtful authority greets us at the gate 

 with directions for the discovery of spring at this and 

 that spot. 



We have all our favourite sign, for which we look 

 and of which we first think ; we have all perhaps our 

 favourite quotation ; and may perhaps profitably con 

 fess all these, however trite, in order to exchange them 

 with neighbours. My favourite search to confess it once 

 more is for the crimson flower of the hazel, tasselled 

 over by the hanging catkins, which always begin to shed 

 the golden dust long before the lesser blossoms are ready. 

 And the line or two of verse that most sternly refuses to 

 be suppressed (since a friend introduced it) is from Pat- 

 more s winter ode, and concerns the buried bulb that 

 knows &quot; the signals of the year/ and hails them &quot; with 

 lifted spear*&quot; To complete the confession, the first sight 

 of the winter-proud snowdrops, that pour like a cascade 

 down this dell-hole or lie like pools of reflecting water 

 under those dark yew hedges or quaintly, to quote a 

 forgotten poet, 



dot the green 

 About the fountain Hippocrene 



always inevitably recalls the little scientific fact, discovered 

 by a German botanist, that the hanging bell of these 

 modest and courageous blooms holds a drop of warmth, 

 that saves the tender stigma and stamens from the cold- 



