22 WAYSIDE WEEDS. 



swelling root, that its stem is upright and hairy, 

 and its calyx sepals are turned back (Fig 2) froei 

 the fully-expanded flower. This, which is the 

 Kanunculus Ibulbosus, or bulbous-rooted crowfoot, 

 put beside the other which is in your Handful, and 

 which, when you gathered it, you thought was 

 precisely similar. Compare the flower-cup (Fig. 3) 

 with the last; It spreads — in old blossoms it falls off 

 — but does not turn down even in the fully-expanded 

 flower ; the root of this plant is not bulbous, and 

 attached to it are side-stems, scions, which rest on 

 or run along the ground. This is the Ranunculus 

 repens, or creeping crowfoot ; and no less different 

 is this third species, the Ranunculus acris, or up- 

 right meadow crowfoot, which very likely grew 

 beside the other two, and which, just as likely, you 

 took into your Handful in perfect innocence of any 

 difference. It, too, has a spreading, and not a 

 turned-back calyx, but it has no scions. Make 

 ^another comparison of these three near relations ; 

 their faces are all very similar, are they not? 

 Look a;t the little stems, peokmcles, which support 

 the blossoms. In the first two species you ex- 

 amined, the bulbous and creeping crowfoots, these 

 stems have little channels or furrows cut on their 

 surface ; in the last, the upright crowfoot, they are 

 mostly rounded. Pray look over these little dis- 

 tinctions again, get them iuto your memory, and 

 tell us, could you mistake these plants for one 



