100 PREVALENCE OF YELLOW IN PLANTS. 



with the hoe, and the crop harvested within the 

 year, would be no trifling profit, and may be de- 

 serving of some consideration*. The bark, the 

 wood, the flower, the leaves of many of our native 

 trees and plants afford a yellow dye ; we have no 

 colour so easily produced as this is ; and it is 

 equally remarkable, that, amidst all the varied hues 

 of spring, yellow is the most predominant in our 

 wild and cultured plants. The primrose, cowslip, 

 pilewort, globe-flower, butter-cup, cherlock, crocus, 

 all the cabbage tribe, the dandelions, appear in this 

 dress. The very first butterfly, that will 



" aloft repair, 

 And sport, and flutter in the fields of air/' 



is the sulphur butterfly (gonepteryx rhamni), which 

 in the bright sunny mornings of March we so 

 often see under the warm hedge, or by the side of 

 some sheltered copse, undulating, and vibrating 

 like the petal of a primrose in the breeze. The 

 blossoms of many of our plants afford for the de- 

 coration of the fair a vast variety of colours and 

 intermediate tints ; but they are all of them, or 

 nearly so, inconstant or fugitive before the light of 

 the sun, or mutable in the dampness of the air, 

 except those obtained from yellow flowers : circum- 

 stances may vary the shade, but yet it is mostly 



* Article Reseda, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



