While the fields are bare,
Golden, glossy buttercups,
Spring up here and there,”
we find the early-flowering fact recorded. And, again, the question arises, why is it that “here and there,” before the general leafing time, a buttercup may be found to rear its golden head in one spot, while not far off—and, indeed, within sight it may be—there are tens of thousands of plants of the same species which will not blossom until months later? Sometimes the circumstances of position, in the case of the plant in flower, are so obviously more favorable than those of adjoining flowerless congeners, that the necessary explanation is furnished. But oftentimes the early flowering remains a mystery, in spite of all attempts at elucidation. Does not every one of us remember some occasion when a long walk early in the year has revealed the sight of but one daisy or buttercup in bloom in a locality, which, later on, would have been thronged by countless members of the same species? The mere recollection of the solitary flower which gladdened such a walk is delightful. How much more delightful the event itself!
We need, surely, make no apology for giving something more than mere mention of the dandelion (Leontodon taraxacum) in our enumeration of early flowers. It is, doubtless, a very “common” flower: but that we venture to think is the very reason why it should not be contemptuously dismissed as if it were not worthy of description or consideration. Very often it will happen that the familiar yellow blossom of Leontodon taraxacum is the first which we encounter in the early days of the year, and this hardy and persevering plant has this especial claim upon our regard, that it selects ordinarily the most desolate and dismal places as its habitats, covering them oftentimes with a gorgeous sheet of color. Townspeople, and poor townspeople especially, ought to love this plant, for it lights up with its golden glow the surroundings of the most bare and wretched of human habitations.
The dandelion is worthy of attention. The origin of its common name has given rise to some little discussion. That it is a corruption of the French dents de lion is very generally accepted; but in spite of varying opinions as to what part of the plant resembles a lion’s teeth—whether its roots, by their whiteness, or its florets or leaves, by their indentations, we incline to the leaf theory. The circumstance to note in connection with the leaves is that their teeth-like lobes are turned backwards towards the root from which they all directly spring—a habit which is not at all common to plants with indented leaves. If we look, with a glass to assist the eye, at a dandelion leaf against the light, we shall find something to please us, and something to admire in its venation, in the acute points of the serratures, and in its smooth glossiness. Features of interest to note, too, are its brittle, fleshy, tapering, milky root-stock and rootlets; its hollow, brittle, milky and radical flower-stem; and its buds, with the golden tips shining above the conspicuous involucre (a word derived from involucrum, a case, or wrapper), the involucre in the case of the dandelion consisting of two sets of green scales, the one set enclosing the yellow florets in the manner of a calyx; the other, and narrower set, consisting of a whorl of bracts, or leaf-like appendages, reflexed or bent down. When the blossom opens the upper bracts remain erect. And by-and-by the yellow florets disappear, and are succeeded, each, by a feathery pappus, connected by a slender stalk with a seed, and serving as a wing to bear the seed away when the ripening time arrives. The convex receptacle, in form so much like a pincushion, is, indeed, covered with seeds, whose feathery appendages are crowded into semi-globular form, ready, however, to take flight on the least breath of wind which may be strong enough to bear away to fresh fields and pastures new the tiny germs of the hardy life which lends the beauty of its presence to brighten forlorn waysides and neglected wastes.
We must include the crocus (Crocus vernus) among the possible flowers of January, although the flowering calendar of the gardener will ordinarily be found to assign a later date for its period of blossoming.
The crocus blossom offers the advantage of largeness to those who may wish to carefully study the curious organs of plant flowers. The most conspicuous external feature of the common crocus is the long-tubed purple perianth, divided into six segments, or pieces, constituting the vase-like flower head. Within the floral envelope are contained first the ovary, surmounted by a style which traverses the whole length of the long, narrow tube of the perianth, and is crowned just above the point where the tube expands into its petal-like segments, by a curious three-cleft stigma, each lobe of which is club-shaped or wedge-shaped, and jagged at its extremity. Some little distance below the level of the stigma are reared the anthers of the stamens, three in number. When the pollen grains from these organs have fertilized the ovary, by the agency of the stigma and style, the office of the perianth is fulfilled, and it, with the stamens and stigma, begins to wither and disappear. Then the ovary is enlarged, and rising on a slender stalk from the top of the bulbous root on which it was seated when the floral envelope was present, becomes exposed to the air, and ripens the seeds within its three-celled capsule.
In some of our woods in January may occasionally be found, though it is not widely distributed, the green hellebore (Helleborus viridis). The five oval-shaped, green lobes which form the floral envelope are not, as at first might be supposed, petals but sepals, the much smaller petals, eight or ten in number, occupying the inner portion of the blossom, and immediately surrounding the numerous stamens. These petals, or, as they might be called, nectaries, contain a poisonous honey, and the whole plant, indeed—leaves and flowers—is very poisonous.
We may perchance, before the month is out, light upon the pretty blue blossoms of the field speedwell (Veronica agrestis), with its hairy, deeply-indented and somewhat heart-shaped leaves, placed in opposite pairs along its branching stems, or, perhaps, upon its relative, Veronica buxbaumii.