TREES AND SHRUBS 249 



brown beech, the dark green of Austrian pines giving 

 occasional depth of colour and strength to the whole. 

 How doubly beautiful it is when pale primroses are 

 beneath ! But the tall green hellebore seems the most 

 usual carpet in spring until after we pass Modena. Here 

 the hills are clothed with bushes of box, and although the 

 soil between them looks hard and white and in places 

 chalky, the deep green of the shrubs and the great 

 gleaming pale yellow masses of primroses help us to 

 overlook that. 



Then in the fresh early morning air what a change 

 comes after Mont Cenis ! We are in the land of pergolas 

 and vineyards at last, though not yet awake in April as 

 we pass. For now the vines are merely ugly black knotted 

 stems, and there is comparatively little green foliage 

 to give life to the picture. The two chief colours are the 

 deep blue of the sky and rich, strong red of the earth. 

 Everywhere are upright posts and bits of wood, which 

 later will be clothed with vines ; and this gives a some- 

 what dreary, desolate, broken-stick appearance, that is 

 apt to bring disappointment in the first months of the 

 year. But as we get still farther south, either in the 

 direction of those great stretches of long-stemmed, queer- 

 topped, cork-trees of Spain, or towards the almost 

 tropically luxuriant palms near Genoa, the world seems an 

 entranced one, so much does it differ from our own trim, 

 bright green, hedged-in land. 



We need to be continually observant of all, notebook 

 in hand. Whether it be the thickly planted euonymus, 

 close-clipped, below the ilex-trees in the formal Aquesole 

 Gardens, or the great big camelias out of doors, growing 

 near the ilexes of the Villa Docci — all is familiar, and yet 

 in new natural surroundings, giving fresh inspiration. 

 The blue of the sky, the sparkle of the Mediterranean, the 

 shadow and sunlight that play upon the garden statues, 



