DAFFODILS AND PRIMROSES.

Northern Advocate, 5 June 1912, Page 2

DAFFODILS AND PRIMROSES.

• "My heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils." sang Wordsworth, and most of us can say "Amen" to such sentiments. Now, however, science has bid us beware Oi those jocund blossoms, which-we Lave hitherto fearlessly culled (remarks the Loadon "Morning Leader"). They distil, it appears, a poison which is productive, on certain skins and when ydealt with in quantities, of eruptions under tte finger-nails, as well as general debility. Daffodil-pickers, in the Scilly Isles and Cornwall have proved this long ago, and women who arrange their own flowers at home may find the same damage done to their hands by this poison, which is more annoying than actually dangerous. Even the rabbit, which is obviously hot such a fool as it looks, though it destrdys crocus roots ad lib.,- would not touch daffodils. The flower known as ihe Primula obconica (a species of hot-house primrose) is also fraught with many terrors, and people should be very wary in handling it. One lady died through scratching her nose while smelling one of those ilowers; and it is not uncommon for gardeners to find then? selves attacked by erysipelas after tending the i iant.'Nothing could be more charming and "truly -rural" than the hawthorn buds which so profusely deck English hedges, yet even they can "smile and smile" and yet be villains. More than one unsuspecting little child has died through eating those enticing-looking bud 3. It is alsc necessary to warn children s gainst eating the tulip, scylla, hyacinth, anemone, aconite, celandine, helibore, and arum lily, which all bristle with poisonous possibilities. The delights cf the laburnum pod are likewise of a deadly nature.