RANIIN'CULUS, a genus of plants of the natural order ranunculacem; having five sepals; five petals, with a nectariferous pore at the base of each petal, often covered with a scale; nufny stamens situated on a receptacle, and germens accumulated into a head. The species are numerous, herbaceous plants, mostly perennial. Some of them adorn meadows with their yellow flowers, familiarly known as buttercups; others, known by the name of crowfoot, are troublesome weeds in gardens and pastures. Many, as the spearworts, are found chiefly in moist. places, and some are altogether aquatic, covering the surface of ditches; ponds, and rivers, where the water is shallow, with a carpet of verdure exquisitely studded with beautiful white flowers.—One species, the ASIATIC RANUNCULUS, or GARDEN RAXUNC1TLUS, exclusively the ranunculus of florists, a native of the Levant, has been cultivated in Europe for almost 300 years. From clusters of small tubers it sends up several bipartite leaves, and an erect branched stem, with termi nal flowers, which, in the cultivated varieties, are often double or semi-double, yellow, white, red of various shades, or of mixed colors, very brilliant, and from an inch and a half to two incites and a half in diameter. The cultivated varieties are extremely nu merous. The ranunculus is propagated by seed, by offset tubers, or by dividing the clus ters of tubers. The roots are often taken up in summer, after "lie leaves die, and kept in ft dry place till the lieginuing of the ensuing winter or spring. Protection by frames and glasses, shading from strong sunshine, and other such means, are employed in order to increase the beauty of the flowers. The ranunculus loves a free and rich soil. Double. flowered varieties of some other species, with taller stems and smaller white or yellow flowers, are cultivated in flower-gardens, sometimes under the name of bachelor's buttons.
The .acridity of Many species of ranunculus is such that the leaves, bruised and applied to the skin, produce blisters; and those of B. sceleratus, a pretty common British species, are said to be used by beggars to cause sores, in order to move compassion. R. thora, a Swiss species, is of extreme acridity, and hunters were accustomed, informer times, to poison darts and arrows with its juice. Water distilled from the leaves of It. flammula, a British species, with rather tall stem and ovato-lanceolate leaves, common by the sides of ditches, etc., b' an active and powerful emetic, producing almost immediate vomiting, and capable of being used with great advantage in cases of poisoning.—Yet the leaves of B. ficaria—sometimes called pilewort and lesser celandine, a very common British spe cies, adorning hedge-banks with bright yellow flowers in spring—are capable of being used as a pot-herb. Pastures in which B. atria, Il. revens, etc., are very abundant are injured by them, and they ought to be diligently grabbed out; they are particularly sup posed to give an unpleasant taste to milk and butter; but it is thought not improbable that a moderate mixture of these plants with the other herbage is even advantageous, and that they may act as a condiment. Their acridity is lost in drying, and they are not injurious to hay. The small tubers of pifewort, or lesser celandine, are used for the cure of hemorrhoids; but their acridity also disappears when they are boiled, and they are then a pleasant article of food.