right leaves are placed beside their own blossoms. The box tree, which is now in blossom, offers another example of barren and fertile flowers; not in this case however, very different in appearance. The wild pear, and perhaps the crab (Pyrus malus), are somewhat gayer than the other trees. Our readers must know them; and we have perhaps introduced to them acquaintances enough for one month.

Albeit, in the next, we have a crowd of new friends coming on; for that month is

"The delicate-footed May,

With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,"

MAY.

"The welcome flowers are blossoming,

In joyous troops revealed;

They lift their dewy buds and bells
In garden, mead, and field.
They lurk in every sunless path

Where forest children tread;
They dot like stars the sacred turf
Which lies above the dead.

They sport with every playful wind
That stirs the blooming trees,

And laugh on every fragrant bush,
All full of toiling bees;

From the green marge of lake and stream,

Fresh vale and mountain sod,

They look in gentle glory forth,

The pure sweet flowers of God."-LYONS.

Ir March is "the merry month of spring," truly May is the merry month of the year.

"Of every moneth in the year,

To mirthful May there is no peer,"

says one of the many poets who have celebrated the delights of May. Doubtless, the contrast between

the previous months and this does increase the charms of the season, but there is a freshness in everything which we meet with at no other time. Opening flowers and bursting buds are everywhere, and we must be up and doing. Here a few words on plant classification would, doubtless, be serviceable to our incipient botanists; but for this we must refer them to our previous pages, and pass at once to our extended list; for "bells and flowrets," not only of a "thousand hues," but of a thousand forms, await us.

Let us improve our practical acquaintance with the Ranunculus family, the "Cuckoo-buds" and " Marybuds" of old writers. Last month introduced us to some, and this we find others in store for us. Our first expedition shall be a field one, and we quickly encounter the upright, somewhat hairy Ranunculus bulbosus, with its calyx sepals folded back from its buttercup flower.

Let us get the bulbous root, and then we shall be certain, and can compare with the Ranunculus repens, or creeping crowfoot, which is sure not to be far off. We can then see the likeness with a difference. In the next corn-fields, it is not impossible we may find the small pale-flowered corncrowfoot (Ranunculus arvenis), more conspicuous later in the summer, with its large prickly-looking seed-vessels. Its flowers resemble in size those of the celery-leafed crowfoot, which, with its divided leaves, shining like those of celery, grows in pools and ditches to the height of one or two feet. Two other species of upright water ranunculus must be sought for in blossom later in the summer, but their leaves, instead of being broad, cut and in

dented, are sharp and narrow; hence they get the English name of spearwort, instead of crowfoot. These latter species are the Ranunculus lingua, or greater, and the Ranunculus flammula, or lesser spearwort. The former is a very handsome flower; its blossoms being almost the size of those of the wild rose. The wood-crowfoot, or Ranunculus auricomus-Fig. 84-is by no means an unhandsome flower. It is now found in woods, shady hedgesides, &c., and may be known by the great difference between its kidney-shaped root-leaves and its muchdivided stem-leaves. One peculiarity of the petals

of the ranunculus flowers, is the addition at the base of each of a little nectary. Fig. 127, 1.

As we

Pull off a petal from any one of them, and you will find it at once. may not refer to the Ranunculus genus again, the tall Ranunculus acris, or upright meadow crowfoot, which flowers in July, must not be forgotten. It Fig. 127. derives its specific name from possessing, in a marked manner, the acrid property common to the family. It has happened that an unwary botanist, misled perhaps by the innocent-looking name of buttercup, has given himself an unintentional emetic, and spoiled his day, by carelessly chewing the flower of some of the crowfoot species. Intense burning of the throat and mouth is the consequence. Not impossibly we may gather, at the edge of some corn-field, a little flower, the Myosurus or mousetail, which, with its small green flowers, would not, perhaps, be recognised at first as a ranunculus connexion, which it is.

When in fruit, the collected

seed-vessels have no distant resemblance to the appendage from which it derives its name.

Our morning call on the Ranunculus family has already been long enough for our limits; and their gay neighbours, the Poppies, await us. Who does not know the bright common red poppy, or Papaver rhæas? The Papaver argemone having much smaller petals, is less conspicuous when in flower, but gets the advantage when it displays its long pricklyheaded seed-vessels. The opium poppy, with-when wild-its whitish flowers, with their purple base, is scarcely a British native, having usually escaped from gardens. The seed-vessels of all the poppies offer, from their size, facility for examining this part of the plant. The projecting divisions, or "dissepiments," afford attachment to numerous seeds, which, it is worthy of remark, are so mild in their properties, that in some places, as in Persia, they are made into cakes and eaten, while the seed-vessels, or capsules, which contain them, abound with the narcotic poison known as opium. Our next field friends belong to the cruciform order, of which, in our last, the wallflower was cited as a type. Among them, the bitter yellow rocket, or Barbarea vulgaris, is conspicuous, with its smooth furrowed stem, its lyre-shaped leaves, and its corymbs* of yellow flowers, which become lengthened into racemes of square pods. This plant is about the same height-from one to two feet—as another of the cruciform order, popularly known as

*

Probably, in the course of these papers, various botanical terms may be employed without explanations. These it will be impossible to give without interfering with space required for the notice of the flowers; moreover, they are less necessary here, as most of them are explained in the first portions of the work.

Jack-by-the hedge, which bears white flowers-the leaves heart-shaped. If these two are compared with the common water-cress (Nasturtium officinale), the general family likeness will be detected, and at the same time many minor differences. You need not wander far to find water-cresses, for they grow almost everywhere. But if you do wander over the earth's surface, very probably will you find water-cress in far-distant lands, where you least expect, for it is a very widely-distributed plant. Are these plants, with such finely-divided leaves, and heads drooping before they blossom, dying? Surely not: the plant is the earth-nut (Bunium flexuosum); well named, for it is one of the most slender of our umbelliferæ; the few specimens which are now in full blossom hold their heads erect enough when they expand their flowers. If you pull up a specimen, it comes up with a long white root, but without fibres; evidently this is not the root proper. You must take your trowel-when Caliban, in the Tempest, proffered his "long nails" to dig pig-nuts for Trinculo, it was because some digging was required—go deep enough, and you will reach the tuber, and get a complete specimen. The umbelliferous flowers of Britain are so numerous, especially later in the year, that they require special attention. An umbel-Fig. 128 -is composed of flowers borne on footstalks, which

Fig. 128. An umbel.