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and used in the Gulf of Bothnia for concocting a fish sauce. The name signifies "giving light to a horse," being conferred because of a supposed power to cure equine blindness; or it may mean "shining underneath," in allusion to the silvery underside of the leaf. The old-fashioned Cathartic Buckthorn of our hedges and woods has spinous thorny branchlets, from which its name, _Rhamnus_, is thought to be derived, because the shrub is set with thorns like as the ram. At one time this Buckthorn was a botanical puzzle, even to Royalty, as the following lines assure us:-- "Hicum, peridicum; all clothed in green; The King could not tell it, no more could the Queen; So they sent to consult wise men from the East. Who said it had horns, though it was not a beast." BURNET SAXIFRAGE (_see_ Pimpernel). BUTTERCUP. The most common Buttercup of our fields (_Ranunculus bulbosis_) needs no detailed description. It belongs to the order termed _Ranunculaceoe_, so-called from the Latin _rana_, a frog, because the several varieties of this genus grow in moist places where frogs abound. Under the general name of Buttercups are included the creeping Ranunculus, of moist meadows; the _Ranunculus acris_, Hunger Weed, or Meadow Crowfoot, so named from the shape of the leaf (each of these two being also called King Cup), and the _Ranunculus bulbosus_ mentioned above. "King-Cob" signifies a resemblance between the unexpanded flowerbud and [72] a stud of gold, such as a king would wear; so likewise the folded calyx is named Goldcup, Goldknob and Cuckoobud. The term Buttercup has become conferred through a mistaken notion that this flower gives butter a yellow colour through the cows feeding on it (which is not the case), or, perhaps, from the polished, oily surface of the petals. The designation really signifies "button cop," or _bouton d'or_; "the batchelor's button"; this terminal syllable, _cup_, being corrupted from the old English word "cop," a head. It really means "button head." The Buttercup generally is known in Wiltshire and the adjoining counties as Crazy, or Crazies, being reckoned by some as an insane plant calculated to produce madness; or as a corruption of Christseye (which was the medieval name of the Marigold). A burning acridity of taste is the common characteristic of the several varieties of the Buttercup. In its fresh state the ordinary field Buttercup is so acrimonious that by mere
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