Oh to be in England in April! Wildflowers are here in abundance now. Time to refresh your plant identification skills. If you are unable to identify at least 10-20 of the plants growing in your neighbourhood, it is probable you are missing out on something very special. A buttercup is a good one to master, it’s unmistakably unique and helpfully common. Mary Howitt (1799 – 1888) celebrated them (alongside daisies) with hyper-enthusiasm, noting the qualities of their hardy ubiquitousness. Robert Browning (1812 – 1889), whilst in Italy, also wrote a poem longing for them and a hit of the British countryside; it’s sentimental, it’s nostalgic, it’s romantic, and on a good day it’s all so true. You can still feel this way in the city, because we too have buttercups, in addition to elms, blossoming pear trees, and clover. Perhaps not to the extent seen in Stanley Spencer’s (1891 – 1959) painting Buttercups in Meadow, but that’s why we have Stanley Spencer, to help us see just how incredible plants elsewhere can be.
The three most common buttercups
What we commonly refer to as buttercups are in reality many different species. In the UK it’s most likely to be one of the following three. If you live in the city you’re probably looking at Creeping buttercup. Stanley Spencer, unsurprisingly, was immortalising Meadow buttercups. If you want to know which species you have for sure, then a good plant identification guide will help. There are always ways to tell the difference but a hand lens may be needed.
Creeping buttercup – Ranunculus repens
Meadow buttercup – Ranunculus acris
Bulbous buttercup – Ranunculus bulbosus
Home-Thoughts, From Abroad by Robert Browning
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Buttercups and Daisies by Mary Howitt
Buttercups and daisies-
Oh the pretty flowers,
Coming ere the springtime
To tell of sunny hours.
While the trees are leafless,
While the fields are bare,
Buttercups and daisies
Spring up here and there.
Ere the snowdrop peepeth,
Ere the croscus bold,
Ere the early primrose
Opes its paly gold,
Somewhere on a sunny bank
Buttercups are bright;
Somewhere ‘mong the frozen grass
Peeps the daisy white.
Little hardy flowers
Like to children poor,
Playing in their sturdy health
By their mother’s door:
Purple with the north wind,
Yet alert and bold;
Fearing not and caring not,
Though they be a-cold.
What to them is weather!
What are stormy showers!
Buttercups and daisies
Are these human flowers!
He who gave them hardship
And a life of care,
Gave them likewise hardy strength,
And patient hearts, to bear.
Welcome yellow buttercups,
Welcome daisies white,
Ye are in my spirit
Visioned, a delight!
Coming ere the springtime
Of sunny hours to tell-
Speaking to our hearts of Him
Who doeth all things well.