from _chrysos_, 'gold,' and _splen_, 'the spleen.' There is another
specimen much like this, of which I have spoken, _Chrysosplenium
alternitifolium_; but it is larger, handsomer, and less common. In the
Vosges this plant is much used--as our own water-cress is in
England--for a salad, under the name of _Cresson de Roche_. There is a
little flower, elegant and singular in appearance, though, as its name
indicates, not one of much splendour, which resembles the golden
saxifrage, 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: