98 NATURE AND THE POETS. 



plants, a stranger to all but the few, and when 

 an American poet says cuckoo, he must say it with 

 such specifications as to leave no doubt what cuckoo 

 he means, as Lowell does, in his " Nightingale in the 

 Study " : 



"And, hark, the cuckoo, weatherwise, 

 Still hiding, farther onward wooes you." 



In like manner the primrose is an exotic in Amer- 

 ican poetry, to say nothing of the snow-drop and the 

 daisy. * Its prominence in English poetry can be 

 understood when we remember that the plant is so 

 abundant in England as to be almost a weed, and 

 that it comes early and is very pretty. Cowslip and 

 oxlip are familiar names of varieties of the same 

 plant, and they bear so close a resemblance that it 

 is hard to tell them apart. Hence Tennyson, in 

 " The Talking Oak": 



" As cowslip unto oxlip is, 

 So seems she to the boy." 



Our familiar primrose is the evening primrose, a 

 rank, tall weed that blooms with the mullein in late 

 summer. Its small, yellow, slightly fragrant blos- 

 soms open only at night, but remain open during the 

 next day. By cowslip, our poets and writers gener- 

 ally mean the yellow marsh marigold, which belongs 

 to a different family of plants, but which, as a spring 

 token and a pretty flower, is a very good substitute 

 for the cowslip. Our real cowslip, the shooting-star 

 (Dodecatheon meadia), is very rare, and is one of the 

 most beautiful of native flowers. I believe it is no f 



