192 BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. [June. 



the Clover flower, which is also sweet ; but the stalk yielded no sugary 

 exudation. In Virgil's fourth Eclogue, the 30th line is as follows : — 

 " Et durse quercus sudabunt roscida mella ;" 



and in Georg. lib. i. 131 : " Mellaque decussit foliis." The sense appears 

 to be, " that in the golden age, to be restored under Marcellus (the hope 

 of Home), the Oaks should sweat honey," — a metaphorical expression for 

 exuberant fertility, plenty, and happiness. Sigma. 



Cuckoo-Buds. 



Sir, — In the ' Phytologist ' of the present raontli (March, 1862), a cor- 

 respondent, S. B., in reply to a former correspondent, says that the 

 " Cuckoo-Buds" of Shakspeare (' Love's Labour Lost ') are the flowers 

 of the Ranunculus Ficaria, or Pilewort. He may be right, though I do 

 not quite agree with him, but am of opinion that the " Cuckoo-Buds " 

 have their representatives in the several species of Meadow Crowsfoot or 

 Buttercups, since the lines referred to by S. B. say that " Cuckoo-Buds " 

 of yellow hue 



" Do paint the meadows with delight." 



It might be said that the Ranunculus Ficaria is more a flower of the 

 hedgebauk and the roadside, thaii of the meadow, but of course it is also 

 found in meadows. Therefore may not the several species be combined 

 as the 



" Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue," 



which the poet says " do paint the yneadows" and not the hedgebank? The 

 merely observant admirer of flowers would see little or no difference be- 

 tween the R. repens, R. acris, and R. bulbosus, more commonly known as 

 Buttercups ; and these three meadow species, together with the R. Fica^'ia, 

 are in all probability the " Guckoo-Buds" of the poet. I wish to say 

 further, that not only is the Pilewort, before it expands with the sun's 

 heat, " like a bud closed," but it may be said that the whole of the Ranun- 

 culacece, and, indeed, hundreds of flowers besides, are like buds closed 

 before they expand with the sun's heat. I am not aware that the pretty 

 little Pilewort is called " Cuckoo-Bud " by any of the early writers on 

 botany, but 1 know of one modern botanical writer who affirms the poet's 

 flower to be the Rammculus repens, or Creeping Buttercup. T. S. 



Burnley, March 13, 1862. 



[Q^ueJ'y. — Who is this modern botanist?] 



Communications have been received from 



John Sim ; W.Ashley; Archibald Jerdon ; C. J. Ashfield; S. Beisly ; 

 T, E. A. Briggs; Walter W. Reeves; James Lothian; Walter Gait; T. 

 Moore; H. Beisly; Mrs. Merrifield ; James Backhouse, jun. ; W. Pamplin. 



RECEIVED FOR REVIEW. 



The Preston Chronicle, May "^th. 



On the Value of Rheea as a Silky-looking Fibre, etc. 



James Lothian's List of Florists' Flowers, etc. 



