Bright lacquered, metallic yellow, encouraged by lengthening daylight to bloom in the damp places, along forest stream edges, in wet margins.
Here is Lesser Celandine, and the day before yesterday was my first sighting of these true heralds of Spring.
Wordsworth was a big fan, it wasn’t just the daffodil that took his eye:
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝐹𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑒,
𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑠, 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒, 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛;
𝐴𝑛𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒,
𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓, ’𝑡𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛!
Underground, in the medieval doctrine of signatures thinking, the knobbly root tubers were thought to resemble haemorrhoids, so it was used to treat them. Nicholas Culpeper recommended it confidently.
Today, bright beside the stream; by April, gone.