WATSTDE WEEDS. 21 



we have not yet noticed ; all tte parts are just aS 

 you have seen them in the others. Differing in tuany 

 respects, in this all our plants agree — the petals are 

 perfectly disconnected from one another, and from the 

 stamens, and with the stamens aire fixed to the little 

 receptacle on which is placed the pistil. Now these 

 characters, as we call them, though apparently 

 unimportant to a superficial observer, are far from 

 being so to a botanist j they mark, in fact, one 

 division of botanical arrangement — a division, 

 moreover, which comprises within its limits many 

 other plants and families of plants, beyond the few 

 common weeds we have selected as examples. The 

 buttercup or crowfoot family, or, as it is called 

 botanically, the Ranunculus genus, is made up of 

 numerous individual members, all differing from 

 one another, but yet bearing the general family 

 face. Some so like that you will not distinguish 

 them till the difference has been pointed outj 

 others, though similar, still so different, that you 

 cannot mistake them for each other. 



You have, in all probability, gathered into your 

 handful, at random, a lot of what you call butter- 

 cups; they have all flowers about the same size, 

 with bright yellow shining petals, and look as like 

 as possible ; but take this one, which you gathered 

 in the meadow — if you have got it up by the roots 

 {as you ought to do every plant, the size of which in 

 the least admits it) — ^you find that it has a bulbous 



