258 PLANTS GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 
Along with the spring come the buttercups, and crop up 
everywhere to tell us that a sunny, gay time is in store for us 
all. The earth is awake and bright again, and the blossoms 
appear to dance and skip through the fields, stopping now and 
then to sip the dew and make merry with the bees and butter- 
flies. None is more warmly welcomed or loved more dearly 
than the buttercups. - 
R. acris, tall or meadow buttercup, is common in the fields 
and meadows, especially in the northern states. It is erect, 
with a hairy or sometimes glabrous stem, and grows from two 
to three feet tall, As the preceding species, it is naturalised 
from Europe. 
The exquisite grasses on the plate with the buttercups and 
daisies are called Poa pratensis, and we usually find them all 
growing closely together. 
COMMON BLUE VIOLET. (Plate CXXXV.) 
Viola cucullata. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Violet. Purple. Scentless. Arctic regions to Florida April, May. 
and westward. 
Flowers: solitary; terminal; growing on scapes. Calyx: of five green sepals 
extending into ears at the base. Coro//a: of five unequal petals; the lower one 
with a sac, or spur. Stamens: five, short, united about the pistil. Pisti7: one, 
short, with a one-sided stigma. Leaves: from the base; roundish; cordate. 
Scape: slender ; leafless. 
. The violet needs little description, as somewhere in every 
heart it has its own resting place. Over the ragged urchin 
and the mighty Emperor it casts its subtle enchantment ; for 
have they both not been children? It is in childhood that the 
violet makes its claim to the heart ; and to be the first to dis- 
cover that it has peeped through the crust of winter and to 
shout in triumph of superior knowledge that the violets have 
come, is one of the keenest delights. 
In France the popular legend concerning the violet is that 
one day, shortly before going into exile, Napoleon was walking 
in the garden at Fontainebleu. His companions were General 

