axifrage, in the peculiarity of having a different number of stamens in
its crowning floret from those of the lower ones: this is the green
moschatel (_Adoxa moschatellina), adoxa_ signifying 'inglorious.' The
flowers are pale-green, in a terminal head of five florets, the upper of
which is four-cleft, and has _eight_ stamens, the other being
five-cleft, with _ten_ stamens in each. Its fragile stem and delicate
compound leaves, and the early season at which it blossoms, give
attraction to this little plant, and make it a favourite with me. The
butter-cups are not yet in bloom; but the daisies! Oh, what store of
daisies is on every bank and in every field, and what troops of baby
children, with their little baskets, sitting on the green turf and
picking them! I do love the daisy; and indeed I much fear that I should
have been found taking part with that 'merry troop' of 'ladies decked
with daisies on the plain,' of which we read in Dryden's elegant fable
of _The Flower and the Leaf_, rather than with those wiser and more
renowned who 'chose the leaf':--

'A tuft of daisies on a flowery lay
They saw; and thitherward they bent their way;
To this both knights and dames their homage made,
And due obeisance to the daisy paid.
And then the band of flutes began to play,
To which a lady sung a virelay:
And still at every close she would repeat
The burden of the song--"the daisy is so sweet."'

The structure of the daisy has been noticed in a former paper, and its
appearance needs no description. But there is one other flower which I
meet with that must not escape us, and that is that noble plant, the
butter-bur (_Tussilago petasites_), named from a Greek word signifying a
broad covering. Its leaves, the largest produced by any British plant,
are sometimes from two to three feet across, and form a shelter for
poultry and small animals from the rain. It is a composite flower of the
sub-order _Tubulifloreae_. The large club-shaped bunch of flower comes
before the leaves are more than partially developed, and are of a
pale-purple tint, and of a most delicious fragrance, not unlike the
heliotrope. When these die off, the magnificent leaves form quite a
beautiful object in the landscape. Artists are fond of introducing them
into the foreground of their sketches, and very ornamental they are; but
they should be careful not to place them where nature never designed
they should grow, among dry hill and