Sussex coast, we have never found a single seed. Tournefoot says that he never saw any fruit in Provence or Languedoc, where the Periwinkle is very common, nor about Lisbon. Miller procured seeds by cutting off all the lateral shoots, and Cæsalpinus obtained the fruit by setting the plant in a pot, with little earth.

It would appear that nature wisely checked the formation of the seed of this plant, that propagates itself so rapidly by other means; for was it as productive of seed as many other plants, it would soon occupy more space on the earth than seems destined for any one species of plant: yet we have never dissected a flower where the parts of fructification appear to be so admirably adapted to secure themselves from the inclemency of the weather, or the intrusion of insects, as the parts of the Periwinkle flower. One of the striking beauties of this flower consists in the large pentagonal mouth of the tube, the angles of which point to the centre of the petals, or rather to the centre of each of the five segments of the corolla. To obviate the inconvenience of this large mouth, the tube lessens where the anthers are fixed, and each of the five anthers are terminated by a membrane, so shaped, that as they bend over at the top, they form a dome that effectually secludes every thing that might injure either the stigma or the anthers. The style of this flower is

of a pale orange colour, bearing two distinct circular plates, the lower one of which is of a full orange colour, and the top one white, which may be compared to a shilling placed on a guinea; the lower one is thought to be the true stigma: on the top of the white plate there is a short green elevation, which is crowned with five white drooping feathery substances, that form a rosette, whose purpose seems to be that of confining down the overhanging parts of the anthers, without entirely excluding the air, which can pass through the feathery nature of this crown. The whole of this flower deserves the most curious investigation; and when the internal parts are viewed through a microscope, we can scarcely do less than exclaim in the words of Delille

Each secret spring, each organ let me trace,
That mock the proudest arts of human race;
Completest toil! from endless source that rose,
Each worth a world; for each the Godhead shows.

RANUNCULUS.

Natural Order Multisiliquæ.

Ranunculacea, Juss.

A Genus of the Polyandria Polygynia Class

Long worke it were

Here to account the endlesse progeny

Of all the weeds that bud and blossom there;

But so much as doth need must needs be counted here.

SPENSER.

THE gaily-coloured Ranunculus, that gives such splendour to our vernal parterres, is a species of Crowfoot, that grows naturally in Persia, and other eastern countries, from whence it has been brought to beautify this island, for

The land which warlike Britons now possess,
And therein have their mighty empire raysed,
In antique times was salvage wilderness,

Unpeopled, unmanured, unproved, unpraysed.

SPENSER.

The Turks cultivated the Asiatic Ranunculus at Constantinople for several ages before it was generally known in other parts of Europe. In their language it is called Tarobolos Catamarlale, and their account of it is, that a Vizier, named Cara Mustapha, who delighted to contemplate the beauties of nature in solitude, first observed, amongst

the herbage of the fields, this hitherto neglected flower, and wishing to inspire the then reigning Sultan with a taste for plants similar to his own, he decorated the gardens of the seraglio with this new flower, which he soon found had attracted the notice of his sovereign, upon which he caused it to be brought from all parts of the East, where varieties could be found. But enclosed within the inaccessible walls of the seraglio these flowers remained unseen by the rest of the world, until bribery, which surmounts the loftiest towers, and breaks the strongest bolts, entered the palace of the Sultan, and secured the roots of these highly-cherished plants, which soon afterwards flourished in every court in Europe.

We are told (not in the land of Hibernia, but in France) that this fine flower was one of the fruits of the Crusades, and that St. Louis first brought it into that country. This would make its introduction into France as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, which was about one hundred years prior to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.

Admitting that Louis IX. brought it from Palestine into France, there can be no doubt but that the plant was soon lost in that country, from the imperfect state of gardening at that period; and we should have obtained it from thence instead

of sending into the eastern parts of the world for these roots, which it is evident we did in the time of Queen Elizabeth, as Gerard tells us, in his herbal of that reign, that one kind of Ranunculus "groweth naturally in and about Constantinople, and in Asia, on the further side of the Bosphorus, from whence there hath beene brought plants at diuers times, and by diuers persons, but they haue perished by reason of the long journey, and want of skill of the bringers, that haue suffered them to lie in a boxe, or such like, so long, that when we haue received them, they haue beene as dry as ginger; notwithstanding, Clusius saith he receiued a plant fresh and greene, the which a domesticall theefe stole foorth of his garden: my lord and master, the Right Honourable the Lorde Treasurer, had diuers plants sent him from thence, which were drie before they came as aforesaide. The other groweth in Alepo and Tripolis in Syria naturally, from whence we haue received plants for our gardens, where they flourish as in their owne countrey." This unvarnished account fixes the time of the introduction of the Ranunculus into England, and at the same time is a pretty satisfactory assurance that it was not then growing in Paris, as Clusius would not have mentioned the receipt and loss of a single root, had it been common in the gardens of his country.