292 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



specialist. The usefulness of the museum as a means of 

 popular instruction may be increased, but not indefinitely ; 

 it can never take the place of the class-lesson. Nature 

 Study must rely on methods which work by the pupil, 

 exercising his eyes, hands, judgment, independent observa- 

 tion, imagination and love of doing ; rather than on the 

 lecture and the museum, which work for him, and chiefly 

 exercise his memory. 



LII. BUTTERCUPS ; A STUDY OF 

 SPECIES 1 



Most of us think that we can tell a buttercup when we 

 see it. If required to describe it from memory, we should 

 probably say that it grows in pastures and meadows ; 

 that it has deeply cut leaves ; and that its flower is a 

 shallow cup composed of five glossy petals. Those of us 

 who remember their school lessons in botany will be able 

 to add that it has many stamens and many separate 

 carpels. A good many different plants answer to this 

 description, even when thus amended, and it is not easy 

 to say which are to be reckoned true buttercups and 

 which not. 



Does the reader know the two spearworts, the greater 

 and the less ? They grow in marshy places, and the 

 flowers are very like those of a true buttercup. But the 

 leaves differ ; they are not cut into segments, but un- 

 divided. When the flower of a spearwort is closely 

 examined, we find that it resembles a buttercup not only 

 in general structure, but even in details. Pull off a petal 

 and examine its narrow base with a lens, you will find 

 there a minute projection, which is a honey-gland serving 

 to attract the visits of insects (see Fig. 57). A similar gland 



1 This discussion will be of interest only to those who have had some 

 practice in classifying wild flowers, and desire to understand the reasons 

 for the system which they find in their books. 



