Buttercups and Columbines a3 
high, and consequently easily overlooked. All its 
leaves are radical,—that is, they arise directly from 
the rootstock. They are narrow, spoon-shaped, and 
somewhat fleshy. The minute flower is solitary at 
the summit of a tall stalk, with five narrow sepals 
and an equal number of tubular greenish petals. 
The carpels are very numerous, attached round a 
slender spike. When the flower opens, this spike is 
scarcely longer than the stamens, but it begins to 
lengthen, and continues to do so, rubbing the stigmas 
in succession against the anthers, and so fertilising 
them all with a minimum number of pollen-grains. 
When the process is complete, there is a long spike of 
densely packed achenes, three inches in length, which 
has given the flower its name. We shall find no 
quite similar instance among our flora. There can 
be little doubt that this is another instance of de- 
generation from an insect-fertilised condition,—indeed, 
some of the earliest carpels may still be fertilised by 
the few flies that visit the flower, but the maintenance 
of its petals, though sadly reduced, and the small 
basal spur to the calyx, point to the probability that 
it once secreted honey in that spur and so made it 
worth while for insects to visit the flower. The 
lengthening of the floral axis is probably only one of 
the shifts to which poverty subjects plants as well 
as men. 
Let us pass on from these poor relations of the 
Buttercups to the well-to-do members of the family,— 
those that hold their heads high, having attained to 
the dignity of blue finery, and intimated that their 
transactions with the insect world must be restricted 
to the intelligent and prosperous bees, There is no 
