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PILE-WORT. LESSER CELANDINE. Ranunculus Jicaria. 



Plate 8, fig. 3. 

 Leaves heart-shaped, toothed. Calyx three-leaved. 



" The small, gay Celandine's stars of gold" are the earliest 

 ornaments of our meadows, 



" * * * The first gilt thing 

 That wears the trembling pearls of Spring." Wordsworth. 



In March and April it is as abundant as the common Butter- 

 cup at a later season ; it is very distinct, however, from it. The 

 root is composed of a bunch of white, fleshy, club-shaped knobs. 

 Leaves many from the root, heart-shaped, toothed, and stalked 

 the two or three on the stem of the same shape, but smaller. 

 Petals eight or nine, deep yellow. Calyx of three spreading 

 leaves. Whole plant quite smooth, and growing three or four 

 inches high, with but one stem, and a single flower upon that, 

 It has thus been celebrated by Wordsworth under the name of 



THE SMALL CELANDINE. 



" There is a flower, the Lesser Celandine, 



That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain, 

 And the first moment that the sun may shine, 

 Bright as the sun himself is out again ! 



" When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, 



Or blasts the green fields and the trees distrest. 

 Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, 

 In close self shelter, like a thing at rest. 



"But lately, one rough day, this flower I passed, 



And recognized it, though an altered form, 

 Now standing forth an offering to the blast, 

 And bulleted at will by rain and storm. 



" I stopped and said, with inly-muttered voice, 



4 It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold. 

 This neither is its courage, nor its choice, 

 But its necessity in being old ! ' " 



The knobs or little tubers which form the root much resemble 

 grains of wheat, and as they lie close to the surface, it often 

 happens that when a storm arises they are laid bare, and sepa- 

 rated from the plant. This is the origin of a common country 

 opinion that it sometimes rains wheat. This seems to disagree 

 with the above description of Wordsworth, but this difference 

 consists merely in difference of season of the year. 



