th white water-crowfoot.
The first that flowered were in the pond in the centre of Tolworth
Common. The understalks are long and slender, and with a filament
rather than leaves--like seaweed--but when the flower appears these
larger leaves float on the surface. Quantities of this ranunculus
come floating down the Hogsmill brook, at times catching against the
bridge. A little pond by the lane near Bone's Gate was white with
this flower lately, quite covered from bank to bank, not a spare
inch without its silver cup. Vetches are in flower; there are always
some up the Long Ditton road on the bank by Swaynes-Thorp.
Shepherd's purse stands up in flower in the waste places, and on the
side of the ditches thick branches of hedge-mustard lift their white
petals. The delicate wind anemones flowered thickly in Claygate Lane
this year. On April 24 the mound on the right-hand side was dotted
with them. They had pushed up through the dead dry oak-leaves of
last autumn. The foliage of the wind anemone is finely cut and
divided, so that it casts a lovely shadow on any chance leaf that
lies under it: it might suggest a design. The anemones have not
flowered there like this since I have known the lane before. They
were thicker than I have ever seen them there. Dog-violets, barren
strawberry, and the yellowish-green spurge are in flower there now.

The pine in front of my north window began to put forth its catkins
some time since; those up the Long Ditton road are now covered thick
with the sulphur farina or dust. I fancy three different sets of
fruit may sometimes be seen on pines: this year's small and green,
last year's ripe and mature, and that of the year before dry and
withered. The trees are all in leaf now, except the Turkey
oaks--there are some fine young Turkey oaks by Oak Hill Path--and
the black poplars. Oaks have been in leaf some time, except those
that flower and are now garlanded with green. Ash, too, is now in
leaf, and beech. The bees have been humming in the sycamores; the
limes are in leaf, but their flower does not come yet. There were
round, rosy oak-apples on the oak by the garden in the copse on the
9th. This tree is singular for bearing a crop of these apples every
year. Its top was snapped by the snow that fell last October while
yet the leaf was on. I think the apples appear on this oak earlier
than on any about here. As for the orchards, now they are beautiful
with bloom; walking along the hedges, too, you