19 APRIL 1946, Page 16

Bluebell and Oxlip

The late director of Kew started an experiment • to see whether plucking bluebells, even down to the bleached part of the stem, did them any harm. He rather thought not. His successor, who took infinite trouble to make a census of the flowers that followed the blitz in London, is, I believe, engaged in an experiment of growing certain types of wild flowers within the pale of Kew. If so, I hope he will deal with the oxlip, a flower that in any of its several forms, whether pure or hybrid, seems to be diminishing in the wild, though naturally a very strong grower. I set two or three plants on a rough bank within my garden, among a number of cowslips. To my surprise the oxlips grow each in favour, while the cowslips tend to disappear.