The Flowers of Early Spring 



flowerbud after it. But of the crocus and snow- 

 drop I must say more ; and when one begins to 

 speak of the crocus and snowdrop, it is hard to 

 know when to stop. The snowdrop grows in 

 many parts of Europe, and certainly grows in 

 Italy, Sicily, and Greece ; yet, in spite of its 

 beauty and its being so conspicuous by the time 

 of its flowering, there are no notices of it in Virgil, 

 Theocritus, or Theophrastus. It may be the, 

 Xsuxo'iov of Theophrastus and of the Anthologia 

 Graeca, but this is uncertain. It is not to be 

 wondered at that it is unnoticed by all our earlier 

 poets, for it is certainly not a native, and was not 

 even known as a garden plant till well into the 

 seventeenth century. This is quite certain from 

 its being unnamed by Bacon in his account of the 

 flowers for the early months of the year ; it is not 

 mentioned by Gerard in 1577, but it is by his 

 editor, Johnson, in 1636 ; Parkinson did not have 

 it in 1629, but he had in 1656. It is the same 

 with the foreign gardeners — Clusius knew it ; but 

 it is not in Laurembergius' excellent little book, 

 " De Plantis Bulbosis " (1631); nor does it find 

 a place in that most delightful of all old books on 

 gardening, the " Hortus Floridus " of Crispin de 

 Pas, published in 16 14. It is very much the 

 same with the pretty name. Whoever invented 

 the name of snowdrop — i.e. earrings of snow — 

 deserved a lasting record ; but no one can trace 

 him. Johnson, in 1636, says that "some call 

 them also snowdrops " — and so the name was 



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