GOLDIELOCKS 1 1 



This is in allusion to their brief flowering period. The Wind 

 Flower was held sacred to Venus. In some countries people have 

 an aversion to them, the air being said to be tainted with them, those 

 inhaling it being said to be sick on this account. 



The species of Anemone are all acrid. The Pasque Flower, an 

 allied species, was till recently retained in the Pharmacopoeia, but it has 

 no such remedies as described by Gerarde and Culpeper. It is usually 

 sold by weight, the roots, like ginger, being employed. It was held by 

 the older writers to be injurious to cattle. A species in Kamschatka was 

 utilized to poison the tips of arrows, the juice being applied proving fatal. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



3. Anemone nemorosa, L. Sepals 4-20, petaloid, involucre of three 

 leaves or bracts, carpels tipped with persistent styles, keeled, rootstock 

 creeping, achenes downy. 



Goldielocks (Ranunculus auricomus, L.) 



No deposits have as yet yielded achenes of this plant. It is dis- 

 tributed over the Arctic and Cool Temperate Zones, in Arctic Europe, 

 N. and W. Asia, to the Himalayas. Goldielocks is absent from 

 Monmouth, and in Wales only occurs in Glamorgan, Denbigh, and 

 Anglesea. It is absent from S. Lines and the Isle of Man. In Scot- 

 land it is not found in any of the following counties: Dumfries, 

 Wigtown, Peebles, Selkirk, Linlithgow, Banff, Elgin, Westerness, 

 Main Argyll, W. Highlands or N. Highlands, or Northern Isles. In 

 the Highlands it is found at an altitude of 1600 ft., and in S. and W. 

 Ireland it is rare. 



The Goldielocks is a shade-loving hedgerow and woodland plant, 

 which appears to delight in sandy soil where also some humus is 

 present, and clusters in patches of a yard square beneath the shelter of 

 a bank. There it forms a rich contrast with the surroundings with its 

 yellow (rarely perfect) petals and delicate foliage. It is fond of ground 

 where there are inequalities of the surface, as well as banks, on which it 

 often grows. 



This is one of the terrestrial Crowfoots, with a smooth, shiny stem, 

 with divided leaves, having the lower leaves broadly lobed and the upper 

 more divided, with an erect flowering stem, the flowers being central, 

 and the general shape is pyramidal, as in most plants with radical 

 leaves on long stalks, rounded or kidney -shaped, and more or less 

 leafless flowering stems. A feature of this species is the variation in 

 the type of the leaves at the base. 



