Part 30

YELLOW ADDER’S TONGUE. DOG’S TOOTH VIOLET. Erythronium Americanum. Lily Family.

Scape.—Six to nine inches high, one-flowered. Leaves.—Two, oblong-lance-shaped, pale green mottled with purple and white. Flower.—Rather large, pale yellow marked with purple, nodding. Perianth.—Of six recurved or spreading sepals. Stamens.—Six. Pistil.—One.

The white blossoms of the shad-bush gleam from the thicket, and the sheltered hill-side is already starred with the blood-root and anemone when we go to seek the yellow adder’s tongue. We direct our steps toward one of those hollows in the wood which is watered by such a clear gurgling brook as must appeal to every country-loving heart; and there where the pale April sunlight filters through the leafless branches, nod myriads of these lilies, each one guarded by a pair of mottled, erect, sentinel-like leaves.

PLATE XXXV

MARSH MARIGOLD.—C. palustris. ]

The two English names of this plant are unsatisfactory and inappropriate. If the marking of its leaves resembles the skin of an adder why name it after its tongue? And there is equally little reason for calling a lily a violet. Mr. Burroughs has suggested two pretty and significant names. “Fawn lily,” he thinks, would be appropriate, because a fawn is also mottled, and because the two leaves stand up with the alert, startled look of a fawn’s ears. The speckled foliage and perhaps its flowering season are indicated in the title “trout-lily,” which has a spring-like flavor not without charm. It is said that the early settlers of Pennsylvania named the flower “yellow snowdrop,” in memory of their own “harbinger-of-spring.”

The white adder’s tongue, E. albidum, is a species which is usually found somewhat westward.

CELANDINE. Chelidonium majus. Poppy Family.

Stem.—Brittle, with saffron-colored, acrid juice. Leaves.—Compound or divided, toothed or cut. Flowers.—Yellow, clustered. Calyx.—Of two sepals falling early. Corolla.—Of four petals. Stamens.—Sixteen to twenty-four. Pistil.—One, with a two-lobed stigma. Pod.—Slender, linear.

The name of celandine must always suggest the poet who never seemed to weary of writing in its honor:

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises; Long as there’s a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets, They will have a place in story; There’s a flower that shall be mine, ’Tis the little celandine.

And when certain yellow flowers which frequent the village roadside are pointed out to us as those of the celandine, we feel a sense of disappointment that the favorite theme of Wordsworth should arouse within us so little enthusiasm. So perhaps we are rather relieved than otherwise to realize that the botanical name of this plant signifies greater celandine; for we remember that the poet never failed to specify the small celandine as the object of his praise. The small celandine is Ranunculus ficaria, one of the Crowfoot family, and is only found in this country as an escape from gardens.

PLATE XXXVI

YELLOW ADDER’S TONGUE.—E. Americanum. ]

Gray tells us that the generic name, Chelidonium, from the ancient Greek for swallow, was given “because its flowers appear with the swallows;” but if we turn to Gerarde we read that the title was not bestowed “because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallowes, or dieth when they go away, for as we have saide, it may be founde all the yeare; but because some holde opinion, that with this herbe the dams restore sight to their young ones, when their eies be put out.”

CELANDINE POPPY. Stylophorum diphyllum. Poppy Family.

Stem.—Low, two-leaved. Stem-leaves.—Opposite, deeply incised. Root-leaves.—Incised or divided. Flowers.—Deep yellow, large, one or more at the summit of the stem. Calyx.—Of two hairy sepals. Corolla.—Of four petals. Stamens.—Many. Pistil.—One, with a two to four-lobed stigma.

In April or May, somewhat south and westward, the woods are brightened, and occasionally the hill-sides are painted yellow, by this handsome flower. In both flower and foliage the plant suggests the celandine.

DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET. Viola pubescens. Violet Family.

Stems.—Leafy above, erect. Leaves.—Broadly heart-shaped, toothed. Flowers.—Yellow, veined with purple, otherwise much like those of the common blue violet.

When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird’s warble know, The yellow violet’s modest bell Peeps from the last year’s leaves below,

sings Bryant, in his charming, but not strictly accurate poem, for the chances are that the “beechen buds” have almost burst into foliage, and that the “bluebird’s warble” has been heard for some time when these pretty flowers begin to dot the woods.

PLATE XXXVII

DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET.—V. pubescens. ]

The lines which run:

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat, And earthward bent thy gentle eye, Unapt the passing view to meet, When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh,

would seem to apply more correctly to the round-leaved, V. rotundifolia, than to the downy violet, for although its large, flat shining leaves are somewhat conspicuous, its flowers are borne singly on a low scape, which would be less apt to attract notice than the tall, leafy flowering stems of the other.

COMMON CINQUEFOIL. FIVE FINGER. Potentilla Canadensis. Rose Family.