The Earliest Flowers

They are not in evidence yet but I am waiting and watching for these – the earliest of spring blooms. As the days lengthen, and the temperature warms, (and Monday’s new snow melts), these flowers will start blooming in all the parks in the Greenway. Gold and yellow crocus in the lawns, white snowdrops tucked under trees, the brilliant, shaggy flowers of the witch-hazel drawing you to it’s most wonderful fragrance.

Crocus vernus in the lawn

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’

The smallest and shyest bulb to watch for is the Eranthis hyemalis, the winter aconite. Clearly a spring ephemeral, this early but short lived bloom is a joy to spot – lying close to the ground, tucked into a collar of green bracts, nested in last year’s leaf duff.  The butter tinged flowers face happily upward and open –  if only for a day or two.

Eranthis hyemalis, a woodland corm.