LXXVIll. -THE LESSER CELANDINE. 
Ranunculus Ficaria Linne. 
T O the evolutionist such taxonomic terms as species, sub-genus, genus, etc., are 
mere conventions expressing as nearly as we can make them varying grades of 
relationship or of remoteness of common ancestry. We may well, therefore, admit 
that there is a good deal to be said in favour of the treatment of the Section Ficaria 
of the genus Ranunculus as a distinct genus. The two or three species of this group, 
only one of which is British, are perennials with entire leaves, mostly radical, but 
with a few cauline ones in opposite pairs, from three to five sepals, from eight to 
twelve yellow petals, and small achenes. Ranunculus ficarioides Bory and Chambard 
( = Ficaria peloponnesiaca Nyman) is a form with crenate leaves, occurring in Greece ; 
and the South European F. gran diflora Robert (= /?. Ficaria caltluefolid) has flowers 
about two inches across and decidedly downy carpels. Our own species, the Ficaria 
verna ol Hudson or Ranunculus Ficaria of Linne, which occurs from the Arctic 
Regions to North Africa, presents some well-marked variations to which names 
have been given. 
Its root consists of a cluster of stout unbranched fibres, among which are the 
numerous white, fig-shaped tubercles, each from half an inch to an inch long, to 
which it owes the names Ficaria or Figwort. These partake of the acridity which 
characterises the whole plant and it may have given them some medicinal efficacy ; 
but it was doubtless their form that led, under the doctrine of signatures, to their use 
as a remedy for haemorrhoids, and to the name Pilewort. 
The stem is generally very short, so that all the leaves may be radical ; but it 
may elongate to several inches, bearing pairs of stalked leaves and sometimes rising 
erect ; but more often prostrate and then often rooting from its nodes. Small tubers 
are not uncommon in the leaf-axils. 
The leaves are heart-shaped and may be obtusely angular, wavy, crenate, or 
even deeply lobed, and their glossy bright green is sometimes splashed with the 
purplish black stains of anthocyan. This is, perhaps, more especially the case when 
the plant is growing, as it often does, in shady places. The petiole is longer than the 
blade, stout and dilated at the base into a membranous sheath. In the more common 
form (var. divergens Schultz) these sheaths are narrow, and the auricles of the leaves 
do not overlap ; but in another, more luxuriant form (var. incumhens Schultz) the 
sheaths embrace the next innermost leaf-bases and the auricles overlap. As is often, 
but not always, the case with the acridity of the Ranunculace<e, the pungency of these 
leaves largely disappears on boiling, and they are used for food in Sweden and 
Germany, the plant having in consequence such names as Pfenningsalat (Penny 
Salad), and Scharbocks-Kraut (Scurvy-grass) and Lofl[el-Kraut (Spoonwort), which it 
shares with Cochlearia. 
