48 THE WEEDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Popular Description. A rather small not ornamental buttercup, with 

 small yellow flowers, and leaves which sometimes remind one of celery 

 foliage. 



Names. In the United States it has been called " Cursed Crowfoot," 

 while it is sometimes known as " Celery-leaved Buttercup " from a resem- 

 blance to that useful salad-plant, often observed, but not specially obvious 

 in the plant figured. The name sceleratus, a Latin adjective meaning 

 4t profaned by guilt," has a sinister meaning ; it obviously refers to the bad 

 uses to which the plant has been put i.e., to aid beggars in malingering, 

 and for the poisoning of human beings. The poisonous properties will be 

 referred to later. 



Botanical Description. 



An erect, much branched annual plant, glabrous or nearly so. Stem thick 

 and hollow. Lower leaves stalked, divided into three or more obtusely toothed 

 or lobed segments, the upper one sessile, with three narrow segments. Flowers 

 small and numerous, the petals pale yellow, scarcely longer than the calyx, and 

 without any scale over the hollow spot at their base. Carpels very small and 

 numerous, and in a dense head. 



It is a native of Europe and Northern Asia, including Northern India. 



Experience in other States. It is common in New Zealand, being 

 especially plentiful in moist situations, particularly on the Canterbury 

 Plains. In that State it has a bad name, and Mr. T. W. Kirk, in October, 

 1898, published Leaflet for Farmers, No. 46 (N.Z. Department of Agricul- 

 ture), warning agriculturists against it. 



Experience in New South Wales. Mr. Hamilton first found it growing in 

 a ditch at Waterloo which is in the Botany Bay district, a little south of 

 Sydney and points out that it is in a suitable environment for propaga- 

 tion. I suggest that it got into its present situation by means of the wool- 

 washing establishments in the neighbourhood, but this does not indicate 

 whence it came, and I suggest that it is flourishing 011 the Monaro or New 

 England, or some other cold region of this State. This leads me to again 

 ask farmers and pastoralists to inquire into plants new to them which may 

 attract their attention, but the danger in regard to this and the next weed 

 lies in the fact that there is nothing in regard to them to attract special 

 attention. 



The fact that the first occasion on which this plant hks been found in 

 Australia is from the Snowy River (collected in 1905, Orbost, Victoria 

 Professor Ewart, Proc. Roy. Soc. Viet., 1907, p. 86), points to the Monaro 

 as a likely place for the plant to develop in. It may have travelled in wool, 

 but R. muricatus affords very much greater facilities for attachment to the 

 fleece. 



A Poison Plant. Mr. Hamilton quotes Pammel's " Manual of Poisonous 

 Plants " in regard to this plant, which is said to be especially noxious to 

 cattle. It is said to contain anemonol and anemonic acid, chemical sub- 

 stances originally obtained from the anemone plants closely allied to the 

 buttercup. 



