In the Garden Iris stylosa, which began so bravely in
November, has not shown a finger since; the lemon of aconites has revived after weeks of rain. But already there are other compensa- tions : splashes of primula wanda, grey-pink beards of erica, snowdrops, crocuses, the last delicious shell-pink heads of Viburnum fragrans, creamy fragments of winter honeysuckle, sharp electric-blue stars of lithospermum shining from the mass of black-green leaves. Daphne mezereum seems to have gone back rather than forward since December, but the deep pink buds of lenten-roses are like half-opened oyster shells on beds of pale new leaves, and the shrubby andromedas are walnut-red with buds. A few daffodils are in bud and a few anemones, gloomily purple. There is nothing else except a solitary fawn-mauve trumpet of crocus imperati, last sur- vivor of a batch which has fed successive generations of sweet- toothed mice. In the cold sunshine it has opened out with a startling orange and purple brilliance that makes me wish I could grow it in thousands. II.. E. BATES. [Sir William Beach Thomas, who is travelling abroad for a few weeks, will resume charge of this page on March 31.]
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