74 LENT. 



MARCH 14. St. Maud, q. of Germany, a.d. 968. 



SS. Acepsimas, Joseph, and Athilahas, martyrs. 



»St. Boniface of Ross. 



Obs. St. IMathildis, whose name was soon shortened into Maud, 

 was daughter to Theodoric, a Saxon count, and was early placed in 

 the monastery of Erford. She married Henry duke of Saxony, sur- 

 named the Fowler, who became King of Germany. They had 

 three sons, Otho the emperor, Henry duke of Bavaria, and St. 

 Bruno archbishop of ('ologne. She died lying on sackcloth, with 

 ashes on her head, as was the custom at that time with severe 

 asceticks and penitents. 



Mountain Soldanella Soldenella alpina flowers. 



Officinal Coltsfoot Tussilago Farfara flowers. 



The Officinal Coltsfoot is the Farfara of the old herbists ; it grows 

 abundantly in most parts of Europe, and like all this tribe becomes 

 a noxious weed. The flowers, which are of a golden yellow, come 

 up by the sides of ditches and by roads in abundance before the leaf 

 appears. This plant should be carefully rooted out of gardens, as it 

 is stoloniferous, and its roots, when once they hpve got into good 

 ground, are with difficulty got rid of afterwards. 



The gardens are now gay by the yellow, tlie blue, the lilac, the 

 white, and the striped Crocuses, which adorn the borders with a 

 rich mixture of the brightest colours. The little shrubs of pink- 

 flowered Mezereon are in their beauty. The fields look green with 

 the springing Grass, but few wild flowers as yet appear to decorate 

 the ground : Daisies, however, begin to be sprinkled over the dry 

 pastures ; and the moist banks of ditches are here and there in 

 early years enlivened with the glossy starlike yellow flowers of 

 Pilewort. Towards the end of the month Primroses peep out be- 

 neath the hedges ; and the most delightfully fragrant of all flowers, 

 the Violet, discovers itself by the perfume it imparts to the surround- 

 ing air, before the eye has perceived it in its lowly bed. 



DafTodils begin to be common. In a poem called the Ephialtes 

 Botanicus this plant is called a gaudy iniss uith a yellow vest and a 

 green goion. 



