12 NOVEMBER 1937, Page 18

Waiting for Frost The wild flowers are like the tame,

you could pick a barrow, load of bladder campion and white dead nettle.; and in one spot where garden flowers have strayed the bank is bright with evening primrose. I do not remember ever to have seen so rich a variety of mushroom, toadstools and fungus ; and, indeed, the rambling mycologists have collected an altogether exceptional harvest. On the commons of the home counties, where buds of gorse begin to open (though March is the month that blooms the whins) the harebells, the true bluebells of Scotland, nod in their summer glory. .A stray plant is flowering freely in my garden above a root of heath (erica carnea) which is on the point of flowering. The utter absence of frost has kept in a flourishing state that less desirable plant, the stinging nettle ; which in spite of its persistence is almost as sensitive to a low temperature as are runner beans, from which we still pluck plentiful pods. Blackberries and raspberries are still to be found.