Seasonal Colour in Flowers

Abstract

THE “blue of the wild hyacinth” (see vol. xiii. p. 129) is anticipated by the yellow of the primrose, the daffodil, the marsh marigold, the coltsfoot, the lesser celandine (Ranunculus Ficaria), and especially the winter aconite. We may add as contemporaries the buttercup, the yellow deadnettle, and the cowslip. The furze blooms in autumn and winter, and the golden broom in spring; the dandelion and the groundsel flower during the greater part of the year. The “deep scarlet of our summer flowers,” represented in Britain by the poppies and the pimpernel only, is accompanied by the no less vivid blue of the cornflower, the wild chicory, the viper's bugloss (Echium), whose blossoms change from red to blue as they approach maturity, the flax, and the various campanulas. I say nothing of white flowers; but it is worth notice that the hepatica, bugle (Ajuga), and milkwort (Polygala), vary to almost precisely the same shades of blue, white, and pink, at quite different seasons.