54 WOOD AND GARDEN 



pale-yellow cloud. Heavy rain will wash it out, so that 

 after a storm the sjdes of the roads and paths look as 

 if powdered sulphur had been washed up in drifts. 

 The sun has gained much power, and on still bright 

 days sharp snicking sounds are to be heard from the 

 firs. The dry cones of last year are opening, and the 

 flattened seeds with their paper-like edges are fluttering 

 down. Another sound, much like it but just a shade 

 sharper, and more staccato, is heard from the Gorse 

 bushes, whose dry pods are flying open and letting fall 

 the hard, polished, little bean-like seeds. 



Border Auriculas are making a brave show. Nothing 

 in the flower year is more interesting than a bed of good 

 seedlings of the Alpine class. I know nothing better 

 for pure beauty of varied colouring among early flowers. 

 Except in varieties of Salpiglossis, such rich gradation 

 of colour, from pale lilac to rich purple, and from rosy 

 pink to deepest crimson, is hardly to be found in any 

 one family of plants. There are varieties of cloudings 

 of smoky-grey, sometimes approaching black, invading, 

 and at the same time enhancing, the purer colours, and 

 numbers of shades of half-tones of red and purple, such 

 as are comprised within the term murrey of heraldry, 

 and tender blooms of one colour, sulphurs and milk- 

 whites — all with the admirable tex^ture and excellent 

 perfume that belong to the " Bear's-ears " of old Eng- 

 lish gardens. For practical purposes the florist's defi- 

 nition of a good Auricula is of little value ; that is for 

 the show-table, and, as Bacon says, " Nothing to the 



