Suspended Spring May we hope that this year the behaviour
of that lovely but tricksy plant Iris stylosa will be characteristic of this spring in general. Instead of flowering sparsely in January, it is flowering with unprecedented freedom in mid-April, on the principle that the holding up of the weir adds to the subse- quent force of the water's flow. Hope deferred may make the heart sick, but it may be prelude to the highest satis- faction. A number of plants are beginning to show their likeness to Kipling's Fuzzy Wuzzy, who is " generally shamming when he's dead," and some, like Tennyson's more moral mortal, are climbing " stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things," a feat in which all the tribe of Clematis peculiarly excels. Among the less feared for are the bees, which have now come forth in altogether unexpected strength.
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