The lo^m mnuim: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Paet 40. MARCH, 1883, Vol. 4. 



SNOWDROPS AND 

 DAFFODILS. 



I By. J. P. SouTER, Bishop Auckland. 

 A LTHOUGH many competent bot- 

 anists discard the Snowdrop as 

 a native plant, and in most text-books 

 it is branded as an alien, yet there is 

 scarcely a truly wild plant that is bet- 

 ter known, and certainly not one that 

 is more gleefully welcomed than the 

 " early herald of the infant year." For 

 it tells us that the icy hand of winter 

 is broken, and the frost-bound earth is 

 loosened; that the days are lengthen- 

 ing, and the genial warmth of spring 

 is reviving Flora from her winter's 

 I sleep ; that now is the time for the 

 I botanist to be preparing his apparatus 

 ! for the coming season's collecting. So 

 essentially vernal is the snowdrop that 

 a summer or autumn flower is un- 

 known, no amount of coaxing will 

 entice it to prolong its stay into sum- 

 mer, or hasten its blooming in autumn. 

 But no sooner is Christmas past, than 

 its pair of spear -like green leaves are 

 pushed through the soil, and in shel- 

 tered lawns and old-fashioned gardens 



its waxen bells of purest white are 

 expanded to the fitful gleams of sun- 

 shine ; in fine weather the flowers open 

 with great regularity at ten o'clock in 

 the morning and close at four in the 

 afternoon. 



The Snowdrop and Daffodil belong 

 to the Natural Order Amaryllidacese, 

 which differs from Liliacese, which in- 

 cludes the true lilies, only by the in- 

 ferior ovary. These plants all belong 

 to the great primary division of flower- 

 ing plants, the Monocotyledons, so 

 named because they have only one coty- 

 ledon, or rudimentary leaf in the 

 embyro of the seed. Their stems have 

 also a characteristic mode of growth — 

 endogenous — this is only well marked 

 in woody perrenial trunks, such as 

 palms, of which we have no examples 

 in this country. But all the plants of 

 this section are readily distinguished 

 whilst growing, by the leaves being 

 usually long and narrow, with entire 

 edges, and the veins running parallel 

 with each other from the base to the 

 apex of the leaf, rarely branching or 

 forming a network. The flowers also 

 have the parts invariably in multiples 



