Part II. RANUNCULUS. 305 



on rockwork or in borders, and is also an elegant subject for 

 growing in pots in cold frames. 



RANUNCULUS GLACIAIilS.— G/aaVr Butteraip. 



A WELL-NAMED plant, as it is an inhabitant of very high places 

 on the Alps, and may be often seen in flower near the snow ; 

 indeed, I have scraped away the snow in quantities to get at it. 

 The flowers are rather large, and white-tinted, of a dull purplish 

 rose on the outside ; the calyx soft, with shaggy brownish hairs ; 

 the leaves smooth, deeply cut, and of a dark brownish green. 

 From one to five flowers are borne on the stems, which in a wild 

 state are rather prostrate, and seldom more than six inches long. 

 This very interesting, as well as ornamental kind, will thrive 

 best in a cool position in deep, gritty, peaty soil, with abundance 

 of water during the warm months. I have seen it growing 

 abundantly from under flat stones, and perhaps it would be well 

 to try a few under like conditions on the rockwork. Possibly it 

 will prove more easy of cultivation than is at present supposed, 

 and there certainly should be no difficulty in succeeding with it 

 ' in northern and elevated districts. On the Alps it blooms in 

 early summer, in our gardens somewhat' earlier. It is easily 

 raised from seed, and i^ its native habitat spreads about freely. 

 This is the plant which Mr. Ruskin met high up among the 

 icy rocks, struggling successfully for life near the margins of the 

 everlasting snowy solitudes of the Alps, and which pleased him 

 so much there. 



RANUNCULUS JI^KlASa—Rockwood Lily. 



" Dr. Hooker calls this plant, as well he may, the 'most noble 

 species of the genus ' — ' the Water Lily of the shepherds.' In- 

 deed, even in the dried specimens, of which there are many in the 

 Kew herbaria, the resemblance to our common white Water Lily 

 is striking. The plant is stated to grow in moist places in the 

 Southern Alps, the Wurumui Mountains, in the glacier regions of 

 the Forbes River, near Otago, and elsewhere in the Middle Island 

 of New Zealand, at heights of from 1000 to 5000 feet above the 

 sea. In habit it seems almost identical with our common marsh 

 Marigold, but is twice or thrice larger. The leaves are circular, 

 twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, very like those of the plant 

 last mentioned, but peltate, as in the Nelumbium. The flowers 



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