Golden abundance on a glorious sun filled day

The sides of the roads are paved with golden celandines and this bumblebee just couldn't get stuck in fast enough - frantically buzzing from flower to flower and burying itself in the stamens. Alongside were bright green stems of goosegrass - their minute barbs face downwards on the stems which make them stick to your clothes and arms (this is where it gets a second name, Cleavers). They are called goosegrass because they were the first edible greenery for geese to eat en route to the markets in the big cities. The geese had to travel long distances over several days and even had special shoes made for them so that their feet didn't get damaged and make them lame.

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! Wordsworth

Nicholas Culpeper, the 17th-century herbalist, used the Lesser Celandine to treat his own daughter for the so-called 'king's evil', or scrofula, and claimed that it cured her in one week. In the 16th century John Gerard wrote 'the women do usually make potage of Cleavers with a litttle oatmeal to cause lanknesse, and to keep them from fatnesse'.