And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.”
Tut. They are Shakspeare’s. You see he gives the name of cuckoo-bud to some other flower, a yellow one, which appears at the same season. But still earlier than this time, walls and hedge-banks are enlivened by a very small white flower, called whitlow-grass, which is one of the tribe.
Har. Is it easy to distinguish the plants of this family from one another?
Tut. Not very easy; for the general similarity of the flowers is so great, that little distinction can be drawn from them. The marks of the species are chiefly taken from the form and manner of growth of the seed-vessel, and we will examine some of them by the descriptions in a book of botany. There is one very remarkable seed-vessel, which probably you have observed in the garden. It is a perfectly round large flat pouch, which after it has shed its seed, remains on the stalk and looks likes a thin white bladder. The plant bearing it is commonly called honesty.
Har. O, I know it very well! It is put into winter flower-pots.
Tut. True. So much, then, for the tetradynamous or cruciform-flowered plants. You cannot well mistake them for any other class, if you remark the six chives, four of them, generally, but not always, longer than the two others; the single pistil changing either into a long pod or a round pouch containing the seeds; the four opposite petals of the flower, and four leaves of the calyx. You may safely make a salad of the young leaves wherever you find them: the worst they can do to you is to bite your tongue.
THE NATIVE VILLAGE.—A Drama.
Scene—A scattered Village almost hidden with trees.
Enter Harford and Beaumont.