U.S. #3026
1996 32¢ Winter Aconite
Winter Garden Flowers
Issue Date: January 19, 1996
City: Kennett Square, PA
Quantity: 160,000,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Lithographed and engraved
Perforations: 10.9 vertical
Color: Multicolored
In 1993 the Postal Service issued a booklet bouquet of Spring Garden Flowers. So popular were the colorful stamps that they were followed in 1994 by the Summer Garden Flowers and the Fall Garden Flowers in 1995. The issuance of the Winter Garden Flower stamps completes the series. Like the previously issued stamps in the series, these stamps were also designed by Ned Seidler, a freelance artist who worked for 18 years for National Geographic Magazine, specializing in nature paintings. Painted as a single piece of art, the stamps are a continuous se-tenant, so that the flowers appear as though they are actually growing in a garden.
Although most people consider winter a time of dormancy, these five flowers remarkably begin to bloom long after most other plants have succumbed to the cold, and well before spring’s flowers emerge.
Resembling the buttercup, the charming winter aconite comes up unseasonably early, which most likely accounts for its nickname of “New Year’s Gift.” Interestingly enough, the colder the weather and deeper the snow, the larger and more brightly colored the flower. Planted in clusters, it grows close to the ground forming a golden carpet, which explains its botanical name Eranthis, meaning “flower of the earth.