24 WAYSIDE WEEDS. 



the common water ranunculus, wliicti is so common 

 in every streamlet and ditcli that it well deserves to 

 be called a wayside weed. Look now at the leaves, 

 not the petals, but the plant-leaves, of the butter- 

 cup race, with which we have just scraped acquaint- 

 ance; they are all divided more or less deeply 

 (Fig. 21), but we find others with leaves perfectly 

 undivided : these are the spearwort ranunculuses, and 

 one of them you may gather at the side of almost 

 any pond. The buttercup-like flower of the spear- 

 wort you cannot mistake. One word more about 

 our friends before we part. The members of the 

 buttercup genus are most eloquent expositors of 

 many botanical facts, and you are now in posses- 

 sion of the key to some of their peculiarities. If 

 you use your eyes you cannot miss finding species 

 different from those most common ones upon which 

 we have founded our first lesson. Gather all you 

 can J never mind, at first, if you do not know their 

 names, but put them together, and compare in 

 every part — leaves on the stem, and leaves spring- 

 ing from the root-crown, hairs or no hairs on any 

 part, pistils plain or otherwise. These exercises 

 will teach you how to look at plants, and make the 

 very commonest weeds convey as much instruction 

 as you could get from the rarest exotic. We have 

 dwelt somewhat upon this ranunculus family, not 

 only because of the well-marked characters of its 

 members, but because so many of them are familiar 



