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ON THE COLOURS OF SPRING FLOWERS.* 
By ALFKED W. BENNETT, M.A., B.Sc., E.L.S. 
Lecturer on Botany, St. Thomas’s Hospital. 
E VERY one must Lave noticed the variations in the pre- 
dominant colour of our wild flowers as the season ad- 
vances from spring to summer and autumn. In our hedge-banks 
the pure white of the larger stitchwort and ‘ J ack-by- the-hedge ’ 
gives way to the bright blue of the speedwell, and then to the 
reddish-purple of the black horehound and the various shades 
of the mallows. In our meadows the golden- yellow buttercups 
are gradually replaced by the pink of the sorrels and ragged 
robins, and then by the yellow ragwort and purple knapweed. 
Our river-sides are gay in the early spring with the golden 
marsh-marigold, in the early summer with the yellow flag, in 
the later summer with the purple loosestrife. The bright 
scarlet of the poppies and the pimpernel only appears with the 
ripening corn. The blue campanulas, the bright-yellow St. 
J ohn’s wort, the purple heather, do not brighten the landscape 
till the summer is in its prime, when the green or inconspicuous 
flowers of the hazel, the elm, the oak, and nearly all our 
timber trees, have long since passed away. I do not know, how- 
ever, that these facts have ever been tabulated, or any attempt 
made to reduce them to a general law ; the present article is 
intended as a contribution to this object as far as our early 
spring flowers are concerned. 
Under the title of early spring flowers I include all those 
* An abstract of tbis Paper was read at the York Meeting of the British 
Association. 
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