IRature IRotes : 
^be Selbovne Society’s fll>aoa3ine. 
No. 44. AUGUS*r, 1893. VoL. IV. 
FLOWERS OF WINTER AND OF SPRING. 
AST November I sent to Nature Notes a short 
account of the birds which come to our garden dur- 
ing the winter months ; and to-day I should like to 
speak about the flowers of winter and spring in this 
snow-bound valley. 
Early in January we drove across the frozen Davos Lake in 
a hay sledge. Following the path which the wood-carts make, 
we passed the pool where men were cutting ice, and so came 
to the garden of frost flowers. Half a foot of snow lies upon 
the lake, and the crystals have grown here like flowers in a 
garden where the colours are varied and beautiful, ever shifting 
m the sun’s rays. These children of the frozen mist are some- 
times pointed, like tiny wings, when they will flutter to the 
slightest breath of wind. Again there are spiked stars, dancing 
all night beneath the moon. Sometimes they cling to the reeds 
like delicate blossoms ; or else they float in the half-congealed 
pools of water, or they are frozen into the solid ice ; and 
wherever the mist rises from the river’s mouth, there you wall 
find the flowers with their six petals, shining bright in the sun- 
light, settling on the blades of grass like butterflies whose wings 
are at rest. 
During the last days of January we walked up a side-valley 
and along beside the stream. Here again the frost had played 
some pranks with the mist at night: for he caught the rising 
vapour and made a bridge from bank to bank across the water. 
It was a lovely cave of ice, and hung with great stalactites to 
which the frost-flowers clung, and there were besides ridges of 
thin ice with spaces of air in between. But here it was danger- 
ous to walk, because you were for ever breaking through the 
