The Ranunculus. 179 



to droop its head. But others suppose, that like the lover, whose 

 heart is sad when absent from his mistress, so the Heliotrope 

 droops because it is deprived of the cheering rays of the sun it 

 seems to adore. We give it, in accordance with this last opi- 

 nion, as the emblem of Devoted Attachment. 



There is a flower whose modest eye 



Is turned with looks of light and love, 

 Who breathes her softest, sweetest sigh 



Whene'er the sun is bright above. 



Let clouds obscure or darkness veil, 



Her fond idolatry is fled, 

 Her sighs no more their sweets exhale, 



The loving eye is cold and dead. 



Canst thou not trace a moral here, 



False flatterer of the prosperous hour. 

 Let but an adverse cloud appear, 



And thou art faithless as the flower ! 



The Ranunculus. 



This type of a natural order, the Ranuncutaceae, is found in 

 the class Polyandria, order Polygynia. The generic name is de- 

 rived from rana, the Latin name of frog, because most of the 

 species grow in fenny places where these animals abound. It 

 contains a great number of acrid, bulbous,' or tuberous-rooted 

 perennial plants. Its characters are : Calyx five-leaved ; petals 

 five to eight, with a honeyed pore at the claw; seeds naked. Many 

 of its species are remarkable for the virulent poison- which often 

 lurks beneath their beautiful exterior; most of them will blister 

 the skin if applied externally to the human body, not to men- 

 tion the fatal effects that would result from taking them into 

 the stomach. Some of them are double and much valued by 

 florists, commanding as they do very high prices. The subject of 

 our plate is one of these, and, with its various colored, double 

 flowering varieties, is one of the greatest ornaments of the gar- 

 den, presenting brilliantly colored flowers, nearly as large as roses, 

 and coming out at an early season of the year. The roots of 



