THE DANDELION. 



gleeful blue eyes of the little germander speedwell, 

 in joyful gaiety a lowly domestic plant that loves 

 and seeks alliance with its kind, and in small family 

 associations, by united splendour, decorates the 

 foliage around. And there we find the stitch-wort, 

 mingling her snowy bloom immaculately pure, with 

 pallid green : too delicate to vegetate alone, it seeks 

 the shelter of the hedge or copse, trembles when 

 the breeze goes by, and seems an emblem of inno- 

 cence and grace. And there the bright-flowered 

 lotus with its pea-like bloom, in social union glows 

 as burnished gold, animating and gilding with its 

 lustre all the tribes that spring near it ; and fifty 

 others, too, we note, which, though common and 

 disregarded by reason of our familiarity with them, 

 or expelled from favour by the novelty of far- 

 fetched fair ones, deserve more attention than we 

 are disposed to afford them. There are few plants 

 which we look upon with more perfect contempt 

 than that common product of every soil, the ' dande- 

 lion.' Every child knows it, and the little village 

 groups which perambulate the hedges for the first 

 offspring of the year, amuse themselves by hang- 

 ing circlets of its stalks linked like a chain round 

 their necks : yet if we examine this in all the stages 

 of its growth, we shall pronounce it a beautiful 

 production ; and its blossom, though often a soli- 

 tary one, is perhaps the very first that enlivens 

 the sunny bank of the hedge in the opening year, 



