emember it in Kent before Christmas, but I
will not answer for it. According to Blomefield, the honour of being the
first plant to awake must be given to the honeysuckle (_Lonicera
caprifolium_), which unfolds its leaves between 1st January and 22nd
February, _i.e._ on 21st January on the average. This bold behaviour is
all the more to its credit since it is said by Hooker {4b} to be a
naturalised plant.

Then follow in order the flowers of furze, hazel, winter aconite
(_Eranthis_), hellebore (_H. foetidus_), daisy, and snowdrop; so that the
winter flowers make a most pleasant show, and tempt us to raise January
to the rank of the first month of springtime--but we must allow the
credit to be justly due to winter. In winter, too, we must be grateful
to the ivy of the bare hedgerows shining in the sun, its leaves
glistening like the simple jewels of a savage.

With February, we are agreed that spring comes in, but it is a springtime
that keeps something of the graveness of winter: though, when the silver
sunshine begins to be decorated with the singing of birds, we must call
it spring.

In February, too, the roads are no longer edged with dead white grass,
but show the fresh green of wayside plants--cow-weed, nettle, dock, and
cleavers.

The trees still stand naked, their leaf-buds waiting for a better season.
I like to think of wintering plants not as being asleep, but rather as
silent. They sing with all their green tongues when spring releases them
from the cupboards (which we call buds) where she has kept them safe.

The service-tree is a hardy creature, for its buds are naked and
unprotected, like Pampas Indians who are proud of sleeping uncovered, and
of seeing, as they rise, their forms outlined in the hoar-frost. I have
only recently noticed the purple tint of alder-buds; {5} and I am
reminded of the character in _Cranford_, who needs Tennyson's words
"Black as ash-buds in March" to teach him the fact. Some trees show
their flowers early. For instance, the hanging tassels of the hazel,
from which the dusty pollen can be shaken out, and the tiny red tufts
which are all the female flower has to show. The alder, too, has a brave
crowd of lambs' tails. The elm should flower about the middle of March,
and its pink stamens make a pleasant sight. These plants are called
anemophilous--that is, _wind-loving_, as though grateful to the wind for
carrying their pollen without payment. I can imagine that the pl