The ancients have mentioned numerous species of the _arum_. But it is a very difficult task to bring their nomenclature into any kind of agreement with the species described by modern botanists. However, we may, I think, regard the _arisarum_ of Pliny and Dioscorides as positively identical with our _Arum arisarum_. But we are unable to admit that the _aron_, the _hepha_, the _dracunculus_, the _dracontium_, can be, as commentators represent, one and the same plant; still less can we admit that this plant is our _Arum maculatum_, which is very much rarer in the south than in the north and centre of Europe. In the solution of such problems as these, geographical botany is an element which must not be neglected. Unfortunately it has never been taken into account by the commentators on the great classical authorities. Let me advance a simple proposition. Since the potatoe has become diseased, and the species tends to degenerate, may we not find a substitute for it,--at least, a partial one,--among our Aroids, and, notably, in the _Arum maculatum_? THE RANUNCULACEÆ. Let us return for a while to the order of Ranunculaceæ, of which the Anemones have already furnished us with a specimen. Several very poisonous plants are members of this order; and, in truth, very few can be pronounced wholly innocent. I do not think there is much harm in the _Lesser Celandine_, however--the glossy, starry flower, yellow as a buttercup, with heart-shaped leaves, which Wordsworth has celebrated:-- "Ere a leaf is on the bush, In the time before the thrush Has a thought about its nest, Thou wilt come with half a call, Spreading out thy glossy breast, Like a careless prodigal; Telling tales about the sun, When we've little warmth or none." There cannot be much harm in it, for in the north of Europe the peasantry boil its leaves, and eat them as greens. It thrives in all parts of England, in green woods and meadows, and on wild furzy wastes and open commons; under leafy hedges, and even in the gay pastures, among the primroses and hepaticas. A number of small, grain-like tubers lie around it, close to the surface of the earth; whence it was a common saying in "the days of old" that this plant showered down wheat in its vicinity. * * * * * To the same order belongs the _Buttercup_ (_Ranunculus bulbosus_), whose bulbous root procured for it from our forefathers the name of "St Anthony's turnip." 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.