heceeatiye science. 



53 



about the same size, with bright yellow 

 shining petals, and look as like as possible ; 

 but take this one, which you gathered in the 

 meadow — if you have got it up by the roots 

 {as you ought to do every plant, the size of 

 which in the least admits it) — you find 

 that it has a bulbous swelling root, that 

 its stem is upright and hairy, and its 

 calyx sepals are turned back (Fig. 2) from 

 the fully-expanded flower. This, which 

 is the ranunculus biilbosa, or bulbous- 

 rooted crowfoot, put beside the other which 

 is in your Handful, and which, when you 

 gathered it, you thought was precisely 

 similar. Compare the flower-cup (Fig. 3) 

 with the last. It spreads — in old blos- 

 soms it falls off— but does not turn down, 

 even in the fully-expanded flower, its root 

 is not bulbous, and attached to it " are 

 side-stems, scions, which rest on or run 

 along the ground. This is the ranunculus 

 rcpens, or creeping crowfoot ; and no less 

 different is this third species, the ranunculus 

 acris, or upright meadow crowfoot, which 

 very likely grew beside the other two, and 

 which, just as likely, you took into your 

 Handful in perfect innocence of any differ- 

 ence. It, too, has a spreading, and not a 

 turned-back calyx, but it has no scions. 

 Make another comparison of these three 

 near relations ; their faces are all very similar, 

 are they not? Look at the little stems, 

 peduncles, which support the blossoms. In 

 the first two species you examined, the 

 bulbous and creeping crowfoots, these stems 

 have little channels or furrows cut on their 

 surface; in the last, the upright crowfoot, 

 they are mostly rounded. Pray look over 

 these little distinctions again, get them into 

 your memory, and tell us, could you mistake 

 these plants for one another again P Quite 

 impossible, for sniiill as the marks of differ- 

 ence may be, they are constant. Lastly, 

 get into your mind an idea of the general 

 appearance of these plants — the general hahit. 

 as botanists call it — and you will have 



achieved a practical lesson in plant lore 

 which will not readily be forgot. The above 

 are three of the crowfoot family, with a 

 strong resemblance ; but there are many of 

 the same family, or, let us designate it 

 properly, genus, very different; some have 

 comparatively small flowers, and some are 

 white, as we find in the common water 

 ranunculus, which is so common in every 

 streamlet and ditch that it well deserves to 

 be called a wayside weed. Look now at the 

 leaves, not the petals, but the plant-leaves, of 



Fig. 21. — ^Leaf of Common Buttercup. 



the buttercup race, with which we have just 

 scraped acquaintance ; they are aU divided 

 more or less deeply (Fig. 21), but we find 

 others with leaves perfectly undivided : these 

 are the spearwort ranunculuses, and one of 

 them you may gather at the side of almost 

 any pond. The buttercup-like flower of the 

 spearwort you cannot mistake. One word 

 more about our friends before we part. The 

 members of the buttercup genus are most elo- 

 quent expositors of many botanical facts, andi 



