226 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



golden blossoms ; and throughout the whole floral year 

 buttercups of one sort or another are always with us. 

 In the early summer the quiet pools and gently-moving 

 streams are one great sheet of white from the countless 

 blossoms of the water-buttercups, while the forest-banks 

 are gay with the golden flowers and graceful foliage 

 of the wood crowfoot. The meadows in May and June 

 are no longer a mass of verdure to the eye, but are 

 transformed into glowing gold by the alchemy of Nature, 

 through the masses of bulbous crowfoot, while high away 

 on the corn-land, as we have seen, the dry and arid ground 

 has its representative buttercup, the corn crowfoot. Some, 

 like the meadow crowfoot, have flowers of brilliant golden 

 yellow ; while others, as the celery-leaved ranunculus, have 

 their blossoms of paler tint. Some, like the meadow crowfoot, 

 again, have their leaves richly cut into radiating segments 

 and deeply serrated, a form that one may call the typical 

 buttercup form of foliage ; while the lesser celandine has 

 them heart-shaped, and the spearwort has them nearly a 

 foot long, but an inch or two in breadth at most, and 

 scarcely or not at all notched on their margins. Some, like 

 this same noble spearwort, have blossoms that a half-crown 

 would not more than cover ; while others, as those of 

 the corn crowfoot, a sixpence would suffice to veil from 

 view. Most of them have five-petalled flowers, but in 

 the little celandine we have counted any number of petals 

 in its blossoms up to fourteen. It will be seen, then, 

 that to declare that one has seen a buttercup in flower 

 is scarcely in itself sufficient, as one may in so doing 

 provoke the question, " And which one was it, out 

 of our twenty British species, that you saw .^ " 



