64 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
mouths of cattle. It used to be said that healthy 
tramps, in order to touch the susceptible hearts of 
the charitable, rubbed their naked feet with Ranun- 
culus acris, whereby they raised blisters which were 
palmed off as evidence that they had walked many 
miles in their everlasting fruitless search for the work 
they hope never to find. Little children, too, have 
had their delicate hands blistered by tightly grabbing 
the bleeding stalks of Buttercups they have gathered 
with such joy. Let your eye range over a pasture 
at midsummer, when the grass is very closely cropped 
by sheep or cows, and see how strongly the dark-green 
clumps of Ranunculus stand up above the turf, They 
have been avoided by the animals. Celandine does 
not develop this acridity, neither does the Water 
Crowfoot, which grows out of the way of browsing 
animals. 
There is one point in the structure of these Butter- 
cups to which attention should be called, because 
botanists rightly attach considerable importance to 
it. If a flower be cut vertically through the middle, 
it will be found that the receptacle is a lengthened 
cone from which sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels 
successively spread out. It will be clearly seen here 
that the stamens are attached directly to the re- 
ceptacle and not to the sepals. Space will not allow 
us to deal with the many native species of Ranun- 
culus, but we can briefly glance at the differences 
between a few, to indicate to the reader the kind of 
variation to look for in the others. The Upright 
Buttercup (Ranunculus acris) has an erect stem, 
much divided leaves, sepals and petals spreading 
widely, the anthers shedding their pollen before the 
