are spotted with a paler green. At night, and before rain, the flowers close, and open only in the brightest sunshine.

The major celandine (Chelidonium majus) is common in hedges, and blooms in May. There is also the sea celandine, or yellowhorned poppy (Glaucium luteum), which grows by the coast, and flowers in June.

But let us look for

'On the wood's warm, sunny side,

Primrose blooms in all its pride.'

Who that loves spring sunshine and opening flowers,

does not welcome this fair blossom, which seems yet fairer for its early appearance in the very dawn of spring? Well does it merit its name of prima rosa, or first rose; for even in February, when we have ventured forth to pluck the delicate snowdrop, and ere we have rejoiced

to see

'The vernal pilewort's globe unfold
Its star-like disk of burnished gold,'

we may discover an early blossom; nay, perchance, even

'A tuft of evening primroses,

O'er which the mind may hover till it doses ;
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep,

But that 'tis ever startled by the leap

Of buds into ripe flowers.'

Our English poets have paid due honour to this sweet spring flower, that unites such delicate beauty of colour, form, and fragrance. Milton speaks of the 'pale primrose :'

'The rathe primrose, that forsaken, dies.'

Ben Jonson calls it 'the spring's own spouse.' Wordsworth speaks of the early passing away of this flower, which rarely continues to bloom later than May:

Primroses, the spring may love them,
Summer knows but little of them.'

There are several varieties, but the commonest is the one we have just gathered, and two lilac kinds, which latter are sometimes found in the north of England, and

Scotland, but do not bloom until July. Not one of the primrose tribe but what is rejected by all grazing animals, excepting swine. I have heard of primrose ointment being made from the flowers, and used as a cosmetic. The cowslip and oxlip both belong to this genus; but of them we shall speak when they bloom.

We shall now find growing on the bank the little barren strawberry (Potentilla fragariastrum), so precisely similar in flower and leaf to the wood strawberry (Fragaria vesca), but differing, inasmuch as its pretty white blossom is followed by no fruit. It grows in patches, and loves to nestle beneath the shelter of a spreading tree. The wood strawberry is common throughout Great Britain, and grows in abundance in the woods of France. It does not blossom until May; and I dare say you all know how sweet and refreshing is the fruit it bears:

'Fragrant, if small, and pleasant to the taste,
Agreeable alike in form and hue;

With nought unwholesome, nought that seems misplaced,
Perfection in the strawberry we view.'

There is a delicate plant that sometimes puts forth its little green flowers as early as this, though more abundantly during next month. It is the tuberous moschatel (Adoxa moschatellina), an unobtrusive blossom, flourishing in moist woods and shady places.

'Adoxa loves the greenwood shade;

There, waving through the verdant glade,
Her scented seed she strews.'

Its stems are solitary and upright, its flowers gathered in little yellow-green clusters, and emitting a musky

TUBEROUS MOSCHATEL-Adoxa moschatellina.

scent, which has led this plant by some to be called musk crowfoot. It flowers in March and April, ripening

its berries in May, and scattering them as the poet has said.

Scarcely have the wintry winds died away ere the mezereon (Daphne mezereon) appears, one of the first blossoms to greet the returning spring, with its sweet odours, and the beauty of its delicate purple-pink wreaths. Its clustering flowers, which gather round the shoots of the former year, appear before the leaves are out, as Cowper says:

'Mezereon, too,

Though leafless, well-attired, and thick beset
With blushing leaves investing every spray.'

It is to be found in almost every part of Europe; and, blooming at a season when flowers are few, it has become quite a garden plant. The branches make a beautiful yellow dye; the acrid bark is valuable in medicine, and if bound down upon the skin, will raise a blister. Its root is often applied for toothache, but should be used cautiously, as it is apt to heat and inflame the mouth. Its scarlet, one-seeded berries, which in autumn cluster around the stems, are highly poisonous to man and beast, though harmless to birds; and dearly do the thrush and blackbird relish them. This plant, and several of the Daphne, are often called laurel, from the similarity of their shining leaves to that shrub. It was formerly called spurge olive, and mountain pepper; and the Italians have given it the endearing name of biondella-little fair one.