GOLDILOCKS — continued. 
of aberrant forms of petal have been described in this species, with one or two 
scale-like processes, often adherent to the base of the petal, and sometimes with two 
honey glands, the whole series approximating to the tubular honey-secreting petal 
that is normal in Eranthis. 
It is stated by Edgeworth that the stamens in this plant produce two different 
kinds of pollen ; but neither details nor explanation were given, so that it is a point 
as to which further information would be of interest. 
A remarkable structural character is the presence of little cylindrical tubercles 
upon the floral receptacle which serve as stalks to the achenes. These last are 
compressed and downy, are surmounted by slender, tapering, hooked styles, and 
form collectively globose heads. The flowers are visited by a variety of insects, 
bees, flies, beetles, and moths ; but may also be sometimes self-pollinating. 
With much the same general geographical range as Ranunculus Lingua^ this 
species is more widely and more generally diffused in the British Isles, having 
been recorded from eighty-seven of Watson’s Ii2 counties and vice-counties. At 
the same time, common as it is, its flowers being smaller than those of the 
ordinary Buttercups [R. acris, R. repens, and R. bulbosus) and its petals presenting 
the curious defectiveness which suggests a malformation or a poor specimen. 
Goldilocks does not often enter into the composition of a nosegay of wild flowers. 
When it does so, its juicy, quickly-grown stems soon collapse, though, like the 
Buttercups, they revive when placed in the flower-vase. 
The popular name Goldilocks was formerly given to the slender hair-like stems 
of one of our larger mosses. Polytrichum commune Linne. It is locally applied to the 
Globe-flower {Trollius), and is also a book-name for the rare Composite Chrysocoma 
Linosyris Linne, otherwise known as Aster Linosyris Bernh., or Linosyris vulgaris 
De Candolle, being a literal translation of the name Chrysocoma (from the Greek 
Xpvcro?, chrusos, golden, and KOfjLrj, home, hair). 
