RANUNCULUS. 



but two or three of them are reduced to wizen tags of membrane, 

 thus giving the blossom a sad air of lopsidedness. But, if once the 

 sound form be acquired, it will never cease to be itself, or produce 

 flowers in any way false to its best beauty. So that it is essential 

 either to buy or collect your R. />«• § in flower. Nurserymen 



sometimes give you guidance in the matter ; what they call R. p. major 

 is. in reality., the right R. pan ■ 



R. Phthora has its d :n R. brevifolius, but here the leaves 



are much larger, in the same style., and much more ridiculously 

 broader and shallower than their depth, along which they are more 

 freely and irregularly toothed and lobed and scalloped. The s! 

 leav. - ; two. have the same alteration as the other, and 



glau -_ little stalk ends in the same erect little flower of vin- 

 dictive and venomous yellow. It is abundant in the alpine screes of 

 the Lombard and Tyrolese limestones (and away through Salzburg, 

 ia, and Carinthia to Lower Austria), where it is often taken for 

 R. Thora. which is a lower -level species of twice the size, always to be 

 n by the more or less vast kidney-shaped and scalloped leaf that 

 : "If way up the stem. R. PJAhora has cm - make up for a 



lack of charm; and Lb R Biiia (R. Thora xR- orevifolius). 



B. pii pus lives in the damp rocks of the Campbell and Auckland 

 Islands — a dwarfish thing, altogether fat. with fat stem and fat leaves 



and fat great flowers of mam als veined with purple, sitting 



fatly among the fat leaves on their fat stalk. 



itanlfoUu-s diners chiefly from R. asonitifolius in being yet 

 taller in stature, and ampler of port., with its large leafage less divided, 

 and so rather plane-like, while the V - are launched 



on rather weaklier stems. S ,me uses as the other. 



R. pygmaeus is a most diminutive yellow high -alpine, of no merit, 

 but with a curious distribution. For it abounds all round the fringe of 



Arctic circle of Europe.. Asia and America, and then it breaks out 

 .rarely, here and there, in the highest damp graniu 

 m Tyrol., the V' ..rpathians, and 



Val Zeznina in Switzerland. There and there alone may its minute 

 yellow flora en clingii _ I the gaunt earth between its 



■rs of plump., five-fingered lea*. 



R. pyrenaeua is abundant in the alpine grass of all the Southern 

 ranges., bursting into blossom after the passing of the snow in such 

 illimitable profusion that the plains and folds of the huge greening 

 hills soon look as if the snow had not gone at all. It makes varieties. 

 too, is taller, with long lling 



to the middle, and finally <• : g rather quickly to their tip. 



