16 RANUNCULACE^ 



the bright glossy blossom, which, while March winds are yet blowing, 

 spangles meadows and banks, and enlivens some of our woodlands where the 

 trees are not thickly planted. It is a flower which has suggested some 

 beautiful thoughts to poets ; and few who have looked on it, as the sun 

 shone brightly on its star-like form, would not join with Wordsworth in 

 telling its praises, and feel that there was truth in his playful fancy respect- 

 ing it. This so difters in the shape of its l:)lossoms from our Spearworts and 

 Crowfoots, that some writers place the Celandine in a distinct genus, when 

 it is called Ficaria verna. The leaves are dark green, varied with a paler tint, 

 very glossy and brittle. Children in country-places in Kent rub their teeth 

 with them, to improve their whiteness. They were also formerly boiled and 

 eaten ; but the author, who has tried their worth, cannot say much in their 

 favour. Linnseus recommended to the agriculturist the extirpation of this 

 plant from the pasture, on account of the space occupied by its roots and 

 leaves, and because he considered it injurious to herbs growing near it. 

 Cattle refuse to eat it. It is known in some places by the name of Ficaria ; 

 and this was given from ficus, a fig, because of the little fig-shaped tubercles 

 on the roots. It is owing to the large amount of plant-food stored up in 

 these tubers in one season that the plant is enabled to flower so early and 

 freely next year. It grows throughout Europe, and Dr. Clarke found it near 

 Moscow, just losing its blossoms, on May 29. Elliott has some beautiful 

 lines on the flower : — 



' ' The Celandine, 

 The starry herald of that gentlest gale, 

 Whose plumes are sunbeams dipp'd in odours fine." 



* * * Flowers yellow ; leaves divided. 



12. Wood Crowfoot (E. auricomus). — Leaves smooth, lower ones 

 kidney-shaped, three-lobed, upper ones entire ; calyx shorter than the petals ; 

 petals vmequal in size. Plant perennial. 



This is a common flower in woods, and much like the meadow buttercup, 

 but the blossoms are not so large, and the mode of growth more straggling. 

 It blooms in April and May, and, luilike the other Crowfoots, is destitute of 

 acridity. 



13. Celery-leaved Crowfoot (7*. scelerdfus). — Leaves smooth, cut into 

 oljlong segments ; root-leaves on stalks ; stem hollow, juicy ; carpels collected 

 into an oblong head. This plant, which is very common in watery places, 

 hy the sides of pools and ditches, is usually about a foot and a half or two 

 feet high. It flowers in June, and the blossoms are of pale yellow, and very 

 small size. It is one of the most acrid of the crowfoots, and in former times 

 was in frequent use as a lilister ; but it is a very unsafe application, for it 

 readily causes a wound, which will not so easily be healed. A friend of the 

 writer's, who had wandered by a stream's side, and carried away thence a 

 large nosegay of forget-me-nots, and yellow flag-flowers, and meadow-sweet, 

 had placed among them a quantity of this Crowfoot ; wearied with the heat, 

 he lay down on a grassy bank, placing his nosegay near him, that he might 

 enjoy its odours. In the course of a restless slumber, however, his cheek 

 lay upon the flowers, and he was awakened by a tingling sensation, which 

 he at first attributed to the stings of some of those insects which hover over 



