CALTHA PALUSTRIS. 

 MARSH-MARIGOLD. 



NATURAL ORDER, RANUNCULACE/E. 



Caltha PALUSTRIS, Liniiteus. — Leaves reniform or orbicular, crenate or entire ; two to four 

 inches wide, on long semi-cylindric petioles, upper ones sessile, all of a dark, shining green, 

 veiny and smooth. Root large, and l^ranching. Stem about two feet high, sometimes 

 trailing, hollow, round, dichotomous. Flowers of a golden yellow in all their parts, one and 

 a half inch in diameter, few, pedunculate. [IVoot/'s Class-Book of Botany. See also 

 Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, and Chapman's Flora of the 

 Soiither7i United States.) 



N almost all countries the advent of spring is hailed with 

 delight. Poets love to picture its coming. 



" 'Tis springtime on the eastern hills ! 

 Like torrents gush the summer rills, 

 Through winter's moss and dry, dead leaves 

 The bladed grass revives and lives, 

 Pushes the mouldering waste away, 

 And glimpses to the April day. 

 In kindly shower and sunshine bud 

 The branches of the dull grey wood; 

 Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks 

 The blue eye of the violet looks ; 



The southwest wind is warmly blowing, 

 And odors from the springing grass, 

 The pine tree and the sassafras. 



Are with it on its errands going. 



If we in this country where the winters are by no means long 

 or monotonous can sympathize with these lines of VVhittier, how 

 must the Laplanders rejoice when they see their first spring 

 flower! In these faraway places spring is not supposed to come 

 till the cuckoo's voice is heard; and Linnaeus thought it important 

 enough to note that the first flowers of the marsh-marigold 



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