THE RANUNCULUS. 279 



often turn out worthless. Early in the eighteenth 

 century, the distinguished Scottish cultivator, Justice 

 (already mentioned as a most successful cultivator of 

 hyacinths), was eminently successful in raising fine 

 seedling tulips ; and some skillful florists of our own 

 day, such as Mr. Oliver, of Edinburgh, succeed in break- 

 ing their seedlings into colors equal to the choicest 

 byblcemens of Holland. They save the seeds from the 

 first-rate sorts, the stigma of the intended parent flower 

 having been fertilized with the pollen of some other ex- 

 cellent variety. Seedling tulips, it may be remarked, 

 present this anomaly for the first two or three years, 

 that they form their new bulbs several inches below the 

 old ones, so that an inexperienced cultivator is some- 

 times apt to miss them at the time of lifting. 



The Ranunculus (R. Asiaticus) is, like many other 

 of the florists' flowers, a native of the Levant, where it 

 is a favorite of the Turks. It has sported into innu- 

 merable varieties, and those now in cultivation in Eng- 

 land are mostly of British origin. The plant is of 

 small stature, furnished with decomposite leaves, and 

 rising from a root formed by a bundle of little tubers. 



According to the canons of floral criticism, the pro- 

 perties of a fine double ranunculus are the following : 

 The stem should be strong, straight, and from eight to 

 ten inches high, supporting a large, well-formed blossom 

 at least two inches in diameter^ consisting of numerous 

 petals, the largest at the outside, and gradually dimi- 

 nishing in size as they approach the centre of the flower, 

 which should be well filled up with them. The blossom- 

 should be of a hemispherical form ; its component petals 

 imbricated, neither too closely nor too much separated, 

 and having rather a perpendicular thjin a horizontal 



