66 FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEES. 



It is difficult to explain why the R. auricomus should 

 have got its familiar name of goldilocks, its golden crown 

 of blossom, beautiful and striking as it is, not being, at 

 all events, more beautiful or striking than we find it 

 in many of its allies. The motive that influenced those 

 who first named the plant thus cannot now certainly be 

 known. Ben Jonson uses the word in the following 

 lines : 



" Bring corn-flag, tulip, and Adonis-flower. 

 Fair ox-eye, goldylocks, and columbine, 

 Pinks, goulans, king-cups, and sweet sops-in-wine." 



The goldilocks, or wood crowfoot, as it is sometimes termed, 

 is not unfrequently met with in the woods and coppices 

 the localities that are, as we have already idicated, the 

 especial habitat of this particular species of buttercup. 

 The flowers ordinarily appear about the end of March, 

 and specimens may be met with throughout April and 

 May. The plant is a perennial. The general growth 

 of the plant is upright, a long central stem, about a foot 

 high, with a few lateral stems given off at a very slight 

 angle being the ordinary and characteristic growth. The 

 effect of the plant, as a whole, as we see it rising in the 

 midst of the undergrowth of the copse, is very delicate 

 and graceful; the leaves are of a light and tender green, 

 and there is a refinement of general form that is sufficient 

 to distinguish it from the other kinds of buttercup, which, 

 though mostly graceful and rich in form, have a certain 

 rankness and coarseness about them that is agreeably 

 wanting in the goldilocks. The petals of the flowers are 

 sufficiently wide apart at their bases to enable us to see 

 a good deal of the upper surface of the sepals ; they do 

 not form so compact a circle as in the bulbous crowfoot, 



