WATER CROWFOOT (_Ranunculus aquatilis_).—The white flowers, with yellow
eyes, make quite a sheet over the ponds of Cranbury Common, etc.
Ivy-leaved (_R. hederaceus_).—Not so frequent. The ivy-shaped leaves
float above, the long fibrous ones go below. When there is lack of
moisture, leaves and flower are sometimes so small that it has been
supposed to be a different species. It was once in a stagnant pond in
Boyatt Lane, but is extinct again.
BUTTERCUP or CROWFOOT—
(_R. sceleratus_) Highly-polished petals, which spangle
(_R. acris_) the fields and hedges with gold.
(_R. repens_) All much alike; all haunting
(_R. bulbosus_) kitchen-gardens and pastures, where the cattle, disliking
their taste, leave the stems standing up alone.
SPEARWORT (_R. flammula_).—Flower like the others, but with narrow
leaves.
GOLDILOCKS (_R. auricomus_).—More delicate, upper leaves spear-shaped,
lower pinnate. In the borders of the copse wood of Otterbourne House.
CORN CROWFOOT (_R. Ficaria_).—Small, growing between the corn with hooked
capsules.
SMALL CELANDINE (_R. Bcaria_).—The real buttercup of childhood, with its
crown of numerous shining petals, making stars along the banks at the
first breath of spring. One of the most welcome of flowers.
KING CUPS (_Caltha palustris_).—Large, gorgeous flowers, in every wet
place, making a golden river in a dell at Cranbury.
GREEN HELLEBORE (_Helleborus viridis_).—Under an oak-tree, in a hedgerow
leading from King’s Lane, Standon, and in Hursley.
FUMITORY (_Fumaria officinalis_).—The pretty purple blossoms and graceful
bluish foliage often spring up in gardens where they are treated as
weeds.
YELLOW F. (_F. lutea_).—An old wall at Hursley.
CLIMBING F. (_Corydalis claviculata_).—Cuckoo bushes. Standon, and in
Hursley.
COLUMBINE (_Aquilegia vulgaris_).—This group of purple doves, or of
Turkish slippers, does not here merit the term _vulgaris_, though,
wherever it occurs, it is too far from a garden to be a stray. Ampfield
Wood, Lincoln’s Copse, King’s Lane, and Crabwood have each furnished a
specimen.
BARBERRY (_Berberis vulgaris_).—This handsome shrub of yellow wood,
delicate clusters of yellow flowers, and crimson fruit in long oval
bunches has been sedulously banished from an idea that it poisons grass
in its vicinity. There used to be a bush in Otterbourne House grounds,
but it has disappeared, and only one now remains in the hedge of Pitt
Downs.
POPPY (_Papaver Rhæas_).—Making neglected fields glorious with a crimson
mantle, visible for miles in the sun.
GREATER CELANDINE (_Chelidonium majus_).—Yellow flowers, very frail,
handsome pinnate leaf—lane at Brambridge, Standon, and in Hursley.
CRUCIFERA
ROCKET (_Diplotaxis tenuifolia_).—Seen at Brambridge.
CHARLOCK (_Sinapis arvensis_).—Making fields golden.
WHITE C. (_S. alba_).—Standon, Hursley.
JACK-BY-THE-HEDGE (_Sisymbrium alliaria_).—Seen at Brambridge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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