42 
CHILDREN'S GARDENS 
ii 
It is also sometimes useful also to know the 
Latin name in order to indentify a particular 
flower. One very common instance of a pretty 
English name being confusing or misleading is 
the word “ bluebell.” Some people would only 
use it if they meant the “Bluebells of Scotland,” 
a kind of Campanula , while many people always 
call the wild blue hyacinth, Scilla nutans , which 
carpets the woods in May, “ Bluebells.” Suppos¬ 
ing you wished to buy one or other of these 
flowers from a nursery-gardener, you would 
have to explain which you intended. So my 
advice to all children is to learn the pretty 
English names, but never laugh at the long 
Latin ones, and try and remember them too 
when you can. 
But to return to the spring garden and its 
many flowers. Very like the snowdrop is the 
snowflake, and one kind {Leucojum vernum ) 
flowers early in the spring, although there is a 
summer flowering kind ( L. cestivum) as well. 
The spring one does well in a bed or border. 
Blue flowers, which are uncommon at many 
times of the year, are plentiful in the spring, so 
it is well to make the most of them. One of 
the very brightest is the Siberian squill (Scilla 
sibirica ), which will grow contentedly either in 
beds, borders, or in the grass ; it is about five 
or six inches high, and should be in every 
