If the good saint ever partook of buttercup-corms, we do not envy him his sensations; when boiled, they disorder the stomach, and if eaten raw, act as an emetic.
It was formerly thought, says a pleasing writer, that crowfoot (the buttercup is a species of crowfoot), mingled with the pasture, improved its nature, and that the butter yielded by cows which fed upon this mixture was of a superior quality. Nous avons changé tout cela; we are wiser now; and have discovered that cows carefully avoid eating buttercups, and that several kinds of crowfoot are even poisonous to cattle. On some pasture-lands, in those countries where the produce of the dairy receives particular attention, women and children are employed to destroy the crowfoot, which they do either by pulling up the root, or by plucking off the flower, and preventing it from dispersing its seed. The root of the buttercup is of a highly stimulating property if taken in an uncooked state, and its juice will occasion sneezing; but boiling deprives this, as well as many other vegetable productions, of its injurious properties. A similar effect is produced by drying it in the sun; wherefore the hay crop is not at all deteriorated by its acrid nature.
A very beautiful ornament of still pools and gently-flowing streams is the Water-ranunculus (Ranunculus aqua atilis), whose leaves vary according to the depth, or calmness, or swiftness of their watery habitat, and are thus adapted to permit the passage of water without suffering any injury from its force. The leaves on the surface have a round lobed shape; those immersed hang down in thin small fibres, which offer but little resistance to the current.
The Ranunculaceæ also include the Black Hellebore, or Christmas rose (Helleborus niger), one of our most splendid winter-garden decorations, whose juice the ancients considered a wonderful remedy for mental disorders. In whiteness it rivals the snow, which often accumulates around it, and the snow-drop, which is frequently bound up in the same wreath. It is called the Black Hellebore, to distinguish it from the two wild species which grow in our woods, its root being covered with a thick black skin.
The fragrant white Clematis must not be omitted; its starry drops are "things of beauty," which every true poetic eye will know how to appreciate. It is sometimes called "Traveller's Joy," and sometimes "Virgin's Bower;" either name is richly suggestive of pleasant fancies. Do you remember the beautiful picture in Keats's "Endymion," of the shady sacred retreat where Adonis lay and slumbered? The clematis was one of the precious flowers that adorned it:—
"Above his head
Four lily stalks did their white honours wed,
To make a coronal, and round him grew
All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,