A Backward Spring 



But if the true Christmas rose has failed this 

 year, the hybrid varieties have been loaded with 

 flowers, and I admire them much. They lack 

 the pure beauty of the Christmas rose, but their 

 great flowers have been well compared to gigantic 

 apple-blossoms. They will not bear picking, or 

 if picked they soon fade, but the leaves that come 

 after the flowers are very handsome ; and a large 

 clump makes almost an evergreen bush ; and as 

 the leaves, unlike the flowers, last well in water, 

 they are very useful among cut flowers. Another 

 plant, also named from its " signatures," is the 

 Hepatica, or liverwort ; though its likeness to any 

 part of the liver is very far-fetched. It has no 

 value in medicine, and even by Cole " the noble 

 liverwort is prized more for pleasure to the senses 

 than for helping any disease,'' and " for pleasure " 

 they are most valuable at this time of year, though 

 Parkinson puts them among the flowers of January. 

 They are too well known to require any descrip- 

 tion ; I would only say of them that it is well 

 never to disturb them ; the older the plant the 

 better will it flower ; and I would mention one 

 curious point — that while the single flowers are 

 among the easiest to cultivate, the double blue 

 is in many gardens almost an impossibility, and 

 the double white is so rare that many doubt its 

 existence. I never saw it, but I was assured by 

 the late Mr Wheeler, of Warminster (an excellent 

 gardener, and one of the few nurserymen that are 

 accurate botanists), that it only occurs as the 



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