In Lilac Tide 
*37 
In the garden’s story, there are ever a few pic- 
tures which stand out with startling distinctness. 
When the year is gone you do not recall many days 
nor many flowers with precision; often a single 
flower seems of more importance than a whole 
garden. In the day book of 1900 I have but few 
pictures; the most vivid was the very first of the 
season. It could have been no later than April, 
for one or two Snowdrops still showed white 
in the grass, when a splendid ribbon of Chiono- 
doxa — Glory of the Snow — opened like blue fire 
burning from plant to plant, the bluest thing 
I ever saw in any garden. It was backed with 
solid masses of equally vivid yellow Alyssum and 
chalk-white Candy-tuft, both of which had had a 
good start under glass in a temporary forcing bed. 
These three solid masses of color surrounded by 
bare earth and showing little green leafage made my 
eyes ache, but a picture was burnt in which will 
never leave my brain. I always have a sense of 
importance, of actual ownership of a plant, when I 
can recall its introduction — as I do of the Chiono- 
doxa, about 1871. It is said to come up and 
bloom in the snow, but I have never seen it in blos- 
som earlier than March, and never then unless the 
snow has vanished. It has much of the charm of 
its relative, the Scilla. 
We all have flower favorites, and some of us have 
flower antipathies, or at least we are indifferent to 
certain flowers ; but I never knew any one but loved 
the Daffodil. Not only have poets and dramatists 
sung it, but it is a common favorite, as shown by its 
