4.0 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
its irritating and poisonous qualities. It is said that even pulling up the plant with 
bare hands and carrying it some distance has produced inflammation in delicate 
skins. We know of foolish children who having eaten the bright yellow flowers 
and green leaves were made extremely ill thereby, Cattle in general will not feed 
on it ; but sometimes, when hungry, they have been turned into a field of buttercups, 
and having eaten them, their mouths have become sore and blistered. According to 
Linneus, cows, horses, and pigs refuse it, but goats and sheep will eat it. When 
made into hay its noxious qualities are lost. Poetically, the associations of this plant 
are numerous. An old author introduces it as emblematical of the manhood of 
months : — “June is drawn in a mantle of dark-green grass, and upon his head a 
' 
garland of bents, kingeups, and maidenhair.” 
Another more modern author says,— 
“Here's a kingeup of gold brimming over with dew, 
To be kissed by a lip just as fresh as its own.” 
Gay, the poet, tells us,— 
“Fair is the kingcup that in meadow blows.” 
> 
In the “Shepherd’s Oracles” we are told it was worn by lovers at betrothing 
time, and its golden colour was dedicated to Hymen in more classical history, Old 
Quarles says,— 
“ Love-sick swains 
Compose rush-rings and myrtle-berry chains, 
And stuck with glorious kingeups in their bonnets, 
Adorn’d with laurel slips, chaunt their love sonnets.” 
A variety of this plant has become double, and long been an inhabitant of 
gardens under the name of Bachelor's Buttons ; in French, Bouton-d Or. 
SPECIES XIV—RANUNCULUS REPENS. Lin. 
Piate XXXIV. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. III. Zan. Tab. XX. Fig. 4610. 
Rootstock short, not enlarged. Stem decumbent, with creeping 
scions or runners. Leaves stalked, triangular-ovoid in outline, 
ternate or biternate, the middle leaflet almost always, and the side 
ones occasionally stalked, 3-cleft, with the segments incise-serrate. 
Uppermost leaves sessile, with narrowly elliptical or strap-shaped 
usually entire segments. Peduncles hairy, furrowed. Sepals hairy, 
applied to the petals, which have a conspicuous scale over the nectary. 
Head of fruit globular. Achenes compressed, smooth to the naked 
eye, conspicuously margined, with a straight or slightly-curved 
tapering beak. Receptacle slightly hairy. 
Hedge-banks, river-sides, meadows, and cultivated ground. Very 
common throughout Britain. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
