THE RANUNCULUS. 
169 
GLENNY ON THE RANUNCULUS, 
ITS CULTURE AND PROPERTIES. 
The Ranunculus was once one of the most 
favourite of Florist's flowers, and it has been 
produced nearer perfection than any other 
subject that we know of ; still there is much to 
do to bring it to our standard. All the persons 
who have written about their properties omit 
the most essential of those not jet attained. 
They say, the criterion of a tine double ra- 
nunculus is, that the stem should be strong, 
straight, and from eight to twelve inches long ; 
the two former points are essential in all 
flowers, but whether the stem be one-eighth 
of an inch longer than will keep it above the 
foliage is perfectly immaterial, because in all 
dwarf plants the more uniform their height, 
and the nearer the ground, so that the bloom 
is fairly above the foliage, the better : there is 
nothing gained by length ; it by no means 
adds to their beauty. Again, they talk of 
" a large well-formed blossom, at least two 
inches in diameter," as if size were the grand 
object; whereas there should be a limit to 
every thing, and that limit should depend on 
the natural habit of a plant, and also on the 
natural texture of a bloom. Set the perfec- 
tion of size, and it will mean something ; we 
have no objection to two inches as the per- 
fection, but to set two inches as the minimum, 
is an error calculated to give rise to coarse- 
ness, and coarseness in a ranunculus would be 
fatal. Then it is said that " the outer petals 
should be largest, and gradually diminish to 
the centre," as if it were possible to obtain a 
ranunculus that were otherwise ; the worst 
flower that was ever produced had the largest 
petals outside and gradually diminished towards 
the centre ; it is, in fact, saying nothing. It 
is further stated that the blossom should be of 
a hemispherical form. " Its component petals 
should be imbricated in such manner as 
neither to be too close and compact, nor too 
widely separated, but have rather more of a 
perpendicular than a horizontal direction." 
This is perfectly ridiculous ; the outer petals 
