II RANUNCULACE^ 59 



glabrous perennial with annual shoots about a foot long. 

 The large kidney-shaped, glossy leaves are long-stalked, 

 and have large membranous stipules. The flowers are 

 1-2 inches across, with 5 golden-yellow sepals, but no 

 petals. Honey is secreted abundantly in two shallow 

 depressions at the base of each carpel, and the flowers 

 are visited by many beetles, flies, and bees. Besides the 

 ordinary flowers, it is said that in France and the Tyrol 

 some have no pistil. The plants grow in marshy places, 

 and flower from March to May. The species is very 

 widely distributed in temperate and cold regions both 

 of the northern and southern hemispheres. 



Trollitjs 



T. europseus (Globe Flower ; Old German Trol, a 

 globe) is an erect perennial glabrous herb, 1-2 feet 

 high, with large, pale yellow flowers. The leaves are 

 palmately lobed, the lower ones not unlike those of 

 Ranunculus acris ; the upper ones few, small, and nearly 

 sessile. The sepals, 5-15 in number, are rounded, con- 

 cave, and converge into a globe, nearly concealing the 

 petals. The flower is slightly scented. It does not 

 open far, so that the stamens and pistil are pretty well 

 protected by the sepals. In wet weather it closes more 

 completely. The insect visitors are not very numerous. 

 The seeds are trigonous, black, usually shining, and 

 smooth but finely dotted. The plant grows in damp 

 mountain pastures in North and Central Europe. 



Helleborus 



The plants of this genus are coarse perennial herbs. 

 The flowers have 5 large sepals, and 8-10 small, tubular 

 two-lobed honey -containing petals. The stamens are 

 numerous ; the carpels few, each becoming when ripe a 

 follicle with several seeds. 



Of this genus we have two species — II. fcetidus, with 

 a large close panicle of drooping flowers, which are green. 



