Personal Blogs

From my gate I can see this verge with its striking patches of spring flowers.

There are daisies (the Day’s Eye in Old English, because the flowers close at sunset and open at dawn); middle left, red dead-nettles (the botanical name Lamium purpureum more accurate about the colour); and celandines.

The name celandine is very poetic: Ancient Greek and Latin writers held that it flowered as the the swallows came in spring, and it was called χελιδόνιον, ‘ that of the swallow’.

From the OED:

1578    H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball  i. xx. 32   The small Celandyne was so called, bycause that it beginneth to spring and to floure, at the comming of the Swallowes.