Page:Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse-Vol 1.djvu/26

14 sparingly the following spring. After their second blooming they will have attained to a fair size, and may be shifted to their permanent quarters. Frequent shifting, even unaccompanied by root-division, pre- judicially affects their freedom of flowering. Description of The central group represents the type form of A. Plates. Hepatica. B is the double form of the var. rubra. Fig. 1 is a vertical section through the flower. At the left-hand side of A there is a flower from which the sepals and stamens have been shed, Bhbwing the maturing carpels. 

 RANUNCULUS Natural Order Ranunculace^e. Genus Ranunculus Ranunculus (Latin, rana, a frog, from certain species affecting swampy places). Acrid herbs, annual or perennial. Leaves entire, lobed, or compound; the root leaves often differing from the stem leaves. Flowers in terminal panicles or solitary from the axils; white, yellow, or red. Sepals, three to five, falling oil' early. Petals usually five, some- times absent; with honey glands near base. Stamens numerous; carpels many, with short style, and one ovule. About one hundred and sixty species distributed throughout the temperate regions of the world. History. The P resent y eai " is the tercentenary of the Anemone and the Ranunculus in English gardens; but the Ranunculus had been largely cultivated in the East during periods long anterior to the year 1596, when it was brought from Constantinople. Even at that early date two tolerably distinct races of Ranunculus asiaticus were known as Old Turkey and Persian. Horticulturists have produced from some of the species a considerable number of varieties, many of which are hybrids between the Persian and some other species. Principal Species RANUNCULUS ASIATICUS, the Garden Ranunculus, varies from 8 to 12 inches in height. Its root is a bunch of little claw-like tubers, joined to the stem by their upper and thicker ends; these increase in number with the age of the plant. It lacks the easy grace of the Garden Anemone, but has a neater, more stately, and more brilliant appearance. In cultivation there is a tendency for' some or all