CHAPTER XVI 



BUTTERCUP EVOLUTION 



Amongst that great fivefold group of plants, or 

 dicotyledons^ as the botanist terms them, there are 

 none more familiar than the buttercups of the 

 meadows. The golden yellow of their flowers 

 gives one of its greatest charms to an English 

 landscape during early summer. Yet these flowers 

 are amongst the most primitive that are found in 

 the British flora. 



Like the stonecrops, which I considered in 

 Chapter XIV., the yellow^ buttercups have largely 

 retained the fivefold arrangement of their flow^ers ; 

 five calyx lobes, five petals, numerous stamens 

 (some multiple of five), and likewise a pistil com- 

 posed of many distinct tiny carpels, or ovaries. 

 The Buttercup family, however, differs from that 

 of the Stonecrops in the fact that many of its 

 members have become very highly evolved. In- 

 deed, a walk into almost any old-fashioned, 

 country flower garden will provide the botanist 

 with numerous examples of pedigree buttercups. 

 Globe-flowers, hellebores, anemones, clematises, 

 columbines, paeonies, larkspurs, monkshoods, and 

 many other showy garden blooms, are buttercups 

 with altered and evolved architecture ; and some of 

 these specialised plants I will now consider. 



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