THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 127 



the flowers show no hint of butter color and the roundish and 

 often undivided leaves could scarcely be likened to a crow's 

 foot. Such adjectives as ditch, water, mountain, tall, dwarf, 

 early, and the like are self explanatory as in the case of the 

 specific names ; in fact, they are very f recjuently literal trans- 

 lations of such names. 



The names of obscure derivation are the ones of most 

 interest. Take, for instance, the word knops in such terms as 

 golden knops applied to several species of Ranunculus. This 

 is archaic English for aHower-head and in all probability goes 

 back to the Teutonic knopf or its equivalent, meaning a head, 

 bud, or button. Spearwort, a generic term for several small 

 species of Ranunculus, is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word 

 meaning a spire or shoot just as we still say a "spear" of 

 grass. In all probability the spears used in combat were simi- 

 lar though larger spears. 



The three common species of Ranunculus, R. acris, R. 

 bulbosus, and R. repciis, naturally have the greatest number 

 of common names. They might also be said to be joint own- 

 ers of a number of names referring to their color, as yellow 

 gowan, horse gold, gold balls, gold cups, gold weed, butter 

 rose, butter cress, butter daisy, butter flower in addition to 

 butter cup. Several of these terms may be applied with equal 

 propriety to other species of the genus. The word gowan is 

 now used in Scotland to indicate the daisy, but it once meant 

 any kind of a flower or bud. When Burns wrote of "go wans 

 fine," he doubtless meant wildflowers in general. Butter 

 daisy is a different rendering of yellow gowan. The word 

 rose is another term that once had a less restricted meaning 

 than we allow it at present, as witness rock rose, Christmas 

 rose, rose moss and rose of Jericho. Butter rose is simply a 

 butter colored flower. In horse gold, the word horse implies 

 coarse, comm.on, or spurious. It is often thus employed in 

 flower names, as horse-mint, and horse-radish. 



