So it is said by those who profess a more intimate acquaintance with the Roman meteorology than I can boast, but from the little I know I can believe anything of it that is of good report. Everywhere the prevalence of the ilex, the orange, the laurel, the pine, flatters January with an illusion of June, and under our hotel windows I was witness of the success of the sycamore leaves in keeping a grip of their native twigs even after the new buds came to push them away. In the last days of March a plum-tree hung its robe of white blossoms over the wall of the Capuchin convent from the garden within; but the almond-trees had been in bloom for six weeks before, and the deeper pink of the peach had more warmly flushed the suburbs for fully a fortnight.

ROMAN HOLIDAYS AND OTHERS
by W. D. Howells, 1908