98 PREVALENCE OF YELLOW IN PLANTS. 



may be deserving 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, cows- 

 lip, 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 decoration of 

 the fair a vast variety of colours and intermediate 

 tints, but they are all of them, or nearly so, incon- 

 stant or fugitive before the light of the sun, or 

 mutable in the dampness of the air, except those 

 obtained from yellow flowers : circumstances may 

 vary the shade, but yet it is mostly permanent. 

 Yellow is again the livery of autumn, in all the 

 shades of ochre and of orange; the "sere and 

 yellow leaf" becomes the general cast of the season, 

 the sober brown comes next, and then decay. 



Many impressions commonly fade away and be- 



* Article ( Reseda,' in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 



