RANUNCULACER. 397 
flower we find from three to five pistils, which become follicles. 
The Aconites are very poisonous narcotic herbs, but when applied 
with discrimination they become eminently useful in medicine, 
being employed in cases of neuralgia, rheumatism, paralysis, 
and purulent infections. The most poisonous species is the 
Aconitum ferox,which is acrid in the highest degree. The Aconitum 
Napellus (Fig. 400) is another officinal species; it is rarely met 
with about Paris, but is often found by tourists 
in the mountains of Switzerland. On the Jura 
range it grows to the height of three feet, 
having straight, simple stems, the upper part 
slightly branching, furnished with leaves, shiny, 
of a deep green colour above, and of a pale 
green below, calyx in five or seven segments, 
into oblong, incised lobes. Its flowers, which 
are blue and of an elegant aspect, form elon- iy 
gated bunches, with two little bracts below 4, gio sconitus 
each flower. oie 
The Ranunculus (Fig. 401) has a green calyx, composed of five 
sepals ; the corolla has five petals, furnished at the internal base of 
their aiglet with a nectariferous pore at 
the claw, which is covered by a scale. The 
Stamens and pistils are very numerous ; 
the former are of the ordinary structure, 
but the latter are disposed in an oblong 
prolongated globulous head or capitulum, 
having a short beak, enclosing a single 
ascending and anatropal ovule, which 
become achenes after a time. The British 
Species have all white or yellow flowers ; 
and the achenes occur in several rows, 
forming a globular, ovoid, or oblong 
head, terminating abruptly in a point. 
Many of them are submerged or floating plants of slender stem, 
Some of them with handsome showy flowers, sometimes covering 
the whole surface of the ponds or ditches. This is the case 
With R. trichophyllus, the Water Crowfoot, whose dark green 
and rather rigid foliage is very conspicuous, and whose leaves, 
Fig. 401.—Ranunculus hirsutes. 
