CHAPTEK V 



APEIL 



Woodland spring flowers — Daffodils in the copse — Grape Hyacinths 

 and other spring bulbs — How best to plant them — Flowering 

 shrubs— Rock-plants— Sweet scents of April- Snowy Mespilus, 

 Marsh Marigolds, and other spring flowers — Primrose garden — 

 Pollen of Scotch Fir — Opening seed-pods of Fir and Gorse — 

 Auriculas — Tulips — Small shrubs for rock-garden — Daffodils 

 as cut flowers — Lent Hellebores — Primroses — Leaves of wild 

 Arum. 



In early April there is quite a wealtli of flower 

 among plants that belong half to wood and half to 

 garden. Epimedium pinnatum, with its deUcate, orchid- 

 like spike of pale-yellow bloom, flowers with its last 

 year's leaves, but as soon as it is fully out the young 

 leaves rush up, as if hastening to accompany the 

 flowers. Dentaria pinnata, a woodland plant of Swit- 

 zerland and Austria, is one of the handsomest of the 

 white-flowered cruciferce, with well-filled heads of twelve 

 to fifteen flowers, and palmate leaves of freshest green. 

 Hard by, and the best possible plant to group with it, 

 is the lovely Virginian Cowslip {Mertensia virginica), 

 the very embodiment of the freshness of early spring. 

 The sheaf of young leafage comes ^.Imost black out 



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