THE BUTTERCUP 
93 
ditches ; its white flowers forming beautiful little patches 
upon the water during the early part of summer. 
Those who are little acquainted with flowers might not 
suppose that the glossy, starry celandine, which Words- 
worth has so praised, is also a ranunculus : — 
Ere a leaf is on the bush, 
In the time before the thrush 
Has a thought about its nest, 
Thou wilt come with half a call, 
Spreading out thy glossy breast, 
Like a careless prodigal ; 
Telling tales about the sun, 
When we've little warmth or none/’ 
The celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), which is also called 
smallwort, is of the same bright colour as the buttercup, 
but formed like a star; and its leaves are heart-shaped. 
In some of the northern parts of Europe, where vege- 
tation is not very prolific, its leaves are boiled and eaten 
as greens. The plant grows all over England, in woods 
and meadows or barren commons, and under rich hedges, 
and peeps up in the gaixien among the hepaticas and 
primroses, or there outshines the daffodil. A number of 
small grain-like tubers lie around it, close to the surface 
of the earth, and induced the superstitious of less in- 
formed ages to report of this that it showered down wheat 
around it. 
This cheerful little flower is called the lesser celandine, 
in distinction from the celandine, which is a totally dif- 
ferent plant, and not a ranunculus. In a rare old herBal, 
by Lyte, which, according to the title-page, “ was first 
set foorth in the Almaigne tongue in 1578,” the author, 
speaking of the larger celandine, gravely adds, “ Cheli- 
donium^ that is to say, swallow herbe; bycause, as Plinie 
writeth, it was first found out by swallowes, and hath 
healed the eyes and restored sight to their young ones, 
that have had harme in their eyes, or have been blinde.” 
He tells us also that the lesser celandine received its 
English name from this, and was so c'^lled “bycause that 
it beginneth to spring and to flower at the coming of the 
swallowes, and withers at their returne.” 
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