LXX.— THE GLOBE-FLOWER. 
Trollius europcEus Linne. 
N early related to the Marsh Marigolds are the Globe-flowers, forming the 
small genus Trollius. There are about a dozen species ; but only one is 
British, and this is confined to the moist air of the north and west of our islands. 
On the Continent it is mainly a northern species, and in Scotland it occurs up to 
altitudes of 3,300 feet, luxuriating in permanently moist .soil and well-shaded spots, 
but not apparently much restricted as to the nature of the sub-soil on which it occurs. 
The genus consists of erect perennial herbaceous plants with the short rhizome 
so frequent in the Family to which it belongs. The leaves are scattered and 
palmately lobed ; and the flowers terminal, large, globular, and yellow or lilac. 
There are from five to fifteen petaloid sepals, imbricately arranged, incurved, and 
deciduous, and about as many petals. These are small and narrow, with a very 
short claw and a strap-shaped blade having a honey-secreting depression at its base. 
The stamens are very numerous ; but the carpels may not exceed five in number. 
They each contain numerous ovules, which become three-sided seeds with a leathery 
testa, arranged in two rows. 
The origin of the name Trollius is interesting. It is first used, so far as we 
know, in the sixteenth century, by Conrad Gesner, the many-sided naturalist of 
Zurich, who has been called “ The German Pliny.” Another writer says, however, 
that on Mount Pilatus, near Lucerne, and not very far distant from Zurich, the 
plant is known as Troll Blume. The word trol is said to be Old German for a globe, 
being cognate to such words as “trundle,” and such an etymology commends itself 
to our acceptance as being in harmony with most of the other names of the plant. 
Dr. Prior, however, derives the name from the Swedish zro//, Danish trold, Frisian trol, 
“ a malignant supernatural being, a name corresponding to Scotch PVitches Go^ivan^ and given to this plant on account of its 
acrid, poisonous qualities/' 
The North-Country names Lucken, or Locken, or Lockenty, Gowan mean the locked or 
closed golden flower and refer to the incurved perianth-leaves. They are, however, 
often applied to the Marsh Marigolds, as, perhaps, in Allan Ramsay’s lines : — 
“We’ll pull the daisies on the green 
The lucken gowans frae the bog.** 
The earliest record of our British species, Trollius europaus Linn^, is apparently 
Gerard’s, in his “ Herball ” of 1597, where he speaks or 
“Ranunculus globosus ... in most places of Yorkshire and Lancashire ’* 
It is a handsome plant, one or two feet high, with deeply palmately, five-lobed 
root-leaves, much resembling those of the Common Buttercup, but glabrous, as is 
the rest of the plant. These root-leaves have long petioles and their segments taper 
downward with a wedge-like, or cuneate, outline, and a cut and serrated margin. 
