1861.] BOTANICAL NOTES FOR MALVERN. 277 



The Vernal Flora may be considered as introduced by the 

 " Lady-smock," Cardamine pratensis, or Cuckoo-flower, which 

 in warm spots is in flower by Lady Day, March 25th, though 

 its culmination or general flowering does not take place before a 

 month afterwards. Now it is that, according to Shakspeare, — 



" Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 

 Do paint the meadows with delight ;" 



these " cuckoo-buds" — so called in an opened state, as we have 

 ascertained is still the Warkwickshire term for them — becoming 

 when the sun breaks forth at noon the resplendent golden stars 

 of the Pilewort, Ranunculus Ficaria. In damp, oozy spots, as 

 before remarked, the Marsh Marigold, Caltha palustris, becomes 

 pre-eminently splendid, and dazzles from afar; while the well- 

 known jagged-leaved Dandelion becomes very numerous among 

 the springing grass, to which its yellow composite flowers ofier a 

 brilliant contrast, while a later period of the vernal floral region 

 is marked by their conspicuous white clocks. Now, it is that 

 the exquisitely beautiful 



"Love-sick Cowslip that the head inclines," 



and that gives out so pleasing a fragrance, scatters its pale-yellow 

 clusters over the pastures ; and on the margin of woods the early 

 Purple Orchis, Orchis mascula, becomes a brilliant object of at- 

 traction, distinguished as much almost by its spotted leaves as its 

 broad purple spike of flowers. This merits poetical as well as 

 botanical notice by being the " Long Purples" that fair demented 

 Ophelia held in her hand among the " Dead Nettles " and other 

 emblematic flowers of the spring that she gathered and contem- 

 plated ere the " envious sliver broke" that plunged her delicate 

 form in the fatal waters. Willie Shakspeare knew the vernal 

 (lowers of Warwickshire pretty well as to their vernacular names, 

 ivhether handled by " cold maids " or " liberal shepherds." But 

 naore anon on the vernal flowers, when we can get a truly bright 

 vernal day to rejoice among them, as we have done of yore, 

 among friends dead, changed, or lost — though still embalmed in 

 the memory of pleasant excursions. 



Just one glance on the turf of the hills, to show the tints that 

 come and go, variable as the hues on beauty's cheek, or those 

 that stern Time himself gives to human prospects, or the changes 

 that, alas ! brighten up for a moment or shadow the mind. " Early 



