Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers: Being Rural Wanderings in Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and YorkshireGrindon, Leo H. (Leo Hartley)
History
Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers: Being Rural Wanderings in Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire
Grindon, Leo H. (Leo Hartley)
England -- Description and travel; Natural history -- England -- Manchester
its blossoms collected into a cube-shaped cluster, a flower turned to
each of the four points of the compass, and one looking right up to the
zenith. The roots, as implied in the name, have the odour of musk. On
the moister banks, such as those at the lower edge of the wood, grows
also the golden saxifrage, a pretty little plant, with flat tufts of
minute yellowish bloom. Yellow, in different shades, prevails to a
remarkable extent among English wild-flowers, and especially those
of spring. The rich living yellow of the coltsfoot is a conspicuous
example. The coltsfoot flowers, like those of the poplar tree, open
before the leaves, enlivening the bare waysides in the most beautiful
manner, or at least when the sun shines; for so dependent are they
upon the light, that it is only when the sun falls warm and animating
that they expand their delicate rays, slender as the finest needle,
and reminding us, in their elegant circle and luminous colour, of the
aureola round the head of a saint in Catholic pictures. At first sight,
the coltsfoot might be mistaken for a small dandelion. It is easily
distinguishable from that despised, but useful plant, by the scales
upon its stem, the stalk of the dandelion being perfectly smooth. The
leaves and flowers of the dandelion open, moreover, simultaneously. The
coltsfoot, like the flower it imitates, holds high repute among the
"yarb-doctors," who know more of the genuine properties of our native
plants than it is common to give them credit for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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