Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CXXVII · Topic 20: Summer wildflowers, climbers and water plants
127. The buttercup
Goal: Your child takes a buttercup apart with the eyes and a lens: sepals, glossy petals with a nectar spot, many stamens and a ball of pistils that becomes a seed-ball.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A few buttercups from a sunny field or lawn edge
- White paper to lay them on
What's in the book
A Teacher's Story about the common buttercup and the lesson: Leading thought, Method and eight questions, with a small drawing of a petal showing the nectar scale.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Buttercups bloom from about May through summer in sunny meadows, pastures and roadsides, often with white daisies. They are common, so picking a few is fine. Safety: buttercups are poisonous to eat and the juice can redden skin. Wash hands when you come in.
The leading thought
The buttercup grows with the white daisies, in sunny places, but each buttercup is a single flower, while each daisy is a flower family.
Back and front
Look at the back of a flower of the buttercup. What is there peculiar about the sepals?
Look into the flower. How many petals are there? Are there the same number of petals in all the flowers of the same plant?
The nectar spot
Take a fallen petal, and look at its pointed base with a lens and note what is there.
There is a tiny flap or scale at the base that covers the nectar.
Stamens and pistils
How do the stamens look? Do you think you can count them?
Note the bunch of pistils at the center of the flower.
When the petals fall, what is left? Can you see now how each little pistil will develop into a seed?
Where they grow
Where do the buttercups grow? Do we find them in the woods? What insects do you find visiting the flowers?
Try the old game: hold a buttercup under a chin and see the yellow glow. The glossy petals reflect light like a mirror.
Nature notebook
Draw a buttercup from the front and from the back, then one petal very large showing the nectar scale. Label sepal, petal, stamens and pistils.
Afterwards
Compare a buttercup with a white daisy this week (Lesson CXXXVIII): one is a single flower, the other a family of many.
Answers to the book's problems
Comstock's Teacher's Story: the five sepals are like long little cups, about half as long as the petals, green in the bud and pale yellow with brown tips later. The petals are normally five but often six or more. A tiny scale at the base of each petal covers the nectar. The seeds ripen in a round head, and beetles are the chief pollen carriers.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.