Crow-foot.
Ranunculus.
A COMMON wild plant. There are several sorts of it, but the kind used in medicine is that most common in meadows, and called the common creeping crowfoot. It grows a foot or more high; the stalks are firm, thick, branched, and of a pale green; but they seldom stand quite upright. The leaves on them are few, and divided into narrow segments; the flowers are yellow, of the breadth of a shilling, and of a fine shining colour; they stand at the tops of all the branches; the leaves which rise from the root are large, divided in a threefold manner, and often spotted with white.
Some are so rash as to mix a few leaves of this among salad, but it is very wrong; the plant is caustic and poisonous. They are excellent applied externally in palsies and apoplexies; for they act quicker than cantharides in raising blisters, and are more felt. It is a wonder they are not more used fur this purpose; but we are at present so fond of foreign medicines, that these things are not minded.
There are two other kinds of crow-foot distinguished as poisons; though all of them are, with some degree of justice, branded with this name: but the two most pernicious kinds are that called spearwort, which has long, narrow, and undivided leaves; and that with very small flowers, and leaves somewhat like the divisions of those of smallage. These both grow in watry places.
