The Sweet o' the Year
The "sweet o' the year has come very late, but it has come with a rush. How often it happens that the sudden advance of a black or brown world into a green follows a thunderstorm ! The heavy cloud itself throws out the green into a salience never seen at other times ; and there- after a good deal of the colour seems to survive : yesterday the "maze of quick" was hardly burgeoning. Today even the flower-buds are distinct and the blackbird's nest that was visible the length of a cricket pitch is quite hard to find. This "sweet o' the year," more markedly than ever, though the phenomenon is general, was celebrated first in the town parks and gardens. The gorgeous display of narcissus in Hyde Park began even before the wild Lent Lilies were open ; and such early bushes as the flowering currants were out in Hyde Park, and indeed in Victoria Park—its rival in size—weeks before most country bushes. Next week, probably, the , bluebells of Kew Gardens, which in one part looks like a country spinney, should raise a blue mist round, about the Queen's Cottage. The wild flower that especially flourishes this year—or such is my experi- ence—is the cowslip, and it is hard to beat, whether in scent or grave of form and colour and its parentage has been very useful to our florists.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
Previous page
