COLTSFOOT FLOWERS. 



Br'er Rabbit ; but as soon as it feels pretty 

 confident the worst is past, and no more 

 hard weather will come to nip it in the bud, 

 it boldly sends up its leafless flower-stem, 

 looking more like a shoot of asparagus than 

 anything else, with which most people are 

 familiar. I have never seen it make a 

 serious mistake, even in the sunniest and 

 most treacherous English spring weather. 



Who gave it its wisdom ? to parody Mr. 

 Swinburne. How did it come so well to 

 time itself as the earliest among our con- 

 spicuous spring flowers ? Well, coltsfoot is 

 a composite, belonging to the same minor 

 group as the common ragworts its very 

 leaf, indeed, being a good deal like some 

 of the larger ragworts in type, especially 

 those handsome exotics of the race, so 

 much cultivated in greenhouses under the 

 name of cinerarias. But living in cold 

 northern climates, on the banks of streams, 

 in deep clay soil, where it spreads most 

 vigorously, it has learned by experience 

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