“In this solitary coming forth, which is far more beautiful when we chance to see it thus amidst the melting snow rather than on the dark bare earth, the kind little flower, however it may gladden us, seems itself to wear an aspect almost of sorrow. Yet wait another day or two till the clouds have broken and its brave hope is accomplished, and the solitary one has become a troop, and all down the garden amongst the shrubs the little white bunches are dancing gaily in the breeze. Few flowers undergo such striking change of aspect, so mournful in its early drooping, so gladsome when full blown and dancing in the sunshine.”
The crocus comes next, the same crocus that once “brake like fire” at the feet of the three goddesses, whom poor Œnone saw on Ida. This should always be planted, not in thin lines, but in thick clusters, for only then can be seen the wonderful rich depths of colour, which open out to the sun. Tufts of crocus, too, should spring up beneath the branches of deciduous or weeping trees, where the grass is bare in early spring, and when once planted the crocus seems to go on for ever. A writer in the _Gardeners’ Chronicle_ says that it is known that a particular patch of white crocus has been in the same spot for above 120 years. It is sometimes said that in course of time the yellow crocus will turn into the coarser and commoner purple crocus. This must be a mere fallacy, but it sometimes appears as if it were true. The fact, we take it, is that if the two varieties are placed together the stronger one will gradually get possession of the ground, and supplant the more delicate yellow, just as (as old Waterton used to say) the Hanoverian rats turned out the old brown rat of the country.
Other Spring flowers are far less cultivated in great gardens than in those of less pretension; but no flowers give more pleasure, both from their own beauty, and as being among the first flowers of the year. There are the auricula, or “Basier” (as it is called in Lancashire ballads), with its velvet petals and its powdered leaves; the double primrose, faint smelling of the spring; the hepatica, whose bright little blossoms sparkle like unset gems; the pulmonaria, with blossoms half blue, half red, and milk-stained leaves, for which sacred legends can alone account. Then, above all, are the daffodils, most loved of flowers by the poets, though, once again, in preference to any poet, as less known yet admirable in their way, I will quote a few words from Forbes Watson’s book. “The daffodil,” he says, “is a plant which affords a most beautiful contrast, a cool watery sheet of leaves, with bright warm flowers, yellow and orange, dancing over the leaves, like meteors over a marsh.” But we cannot, of course, pass in review all the flowers of the Spring, though we must urge a claim for such old-fashioned plants as Solomon’s seal with its palm-like leaves, and the crown-imperial with its circlet of orange-bells.