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Wordsworth's Celandine

A well-dressed woodland garden usually has some yellow celandine poppies in bloom in the spring. Their appealing cup-shaped flowers and attractive grey-green foliage blend well with other spring-blooming perennial favorites such as Virginia bluebells, lily of the valley, and bleeding heart.

The poet William Wordsworth must have admired them too. He wrote:

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies;

Let them live upon their praises;

Long as there's a sun that sets,

Primroses will have their glory;

Long as there are violets,

They will have a place in story:

There's a flower that shall be mine,

‘Tis the little celandine.

Ere a leaf is on a bush

In the time before the thrush

Has a thought about her nest,

Thou wilt come with half a call,

Spreading out thy glossy breast

Like a careless prodigal;

Telling tales about the sun

When we've little warmth, or none.



Think about Wordsworth when you spot your first shiny yellow celandine flower this spring.

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