1 10 April — The Common Primrose. 



why the Greeks associated the celandine with the swal- 

 low ; some say that it is because the celandine * (not 

 the lesser) comes when the swallows come, and stays 

 as long as they remain with us ; but others affirm that it 

 is because the swallow used the plant (in which a caustic 

 juice circulates like blood) to give sight to her little 

 ones. Be this as it may, the plant takes her name from 

 the bird. 



XXII. 



The Common Primrose — Nooks where the Primrose grows — Etymology 

 — Beauty of Primrose Yellow — Cowslip and Oxslip — Influence of 

 Agriculture upon Landscape — French Dislike to Solitude — Nature 

 and the Farmers — Wheat-fields in April — A flowering Rape-field — 

 Gentians and Heather — The Blackthorn — Its Chilling Effect — 

 Leafless Oaks. 



A MUCH more delicately beautiful flower is the 

 common primrose, but her praises have been sung 

 so often that it is difficult in this century to say any thing 

 of her that can be either new or interesting. Still, if we 

 can say nothing that is new, there is always a delightful 

 novelty, not unpleasantly mingled with half-melancholy 



difficulty, as there is no positive blue about the plant) may have 

 stood for ykavKov ; and this is the more probable that the under- 

 side of the leaves might be accurately described by the latter 

 adjective. 



* The Figwort Ranunculus, which Wordsworth wrote about, has 

 scarcely any thing in common with the true Celandine but the color 

 and the name. The two plants do not even belong to the same 

 family botanically. The figwort belongs to the Ranunculacece, and 

 the true celandine to the Papaveracece. 



