Ranunculus

As I shared earlier, yesterday Jason and I were looking at Lowes and Home Depot for some plants for our garden and some flowers. And as we were leaving Home Depot we noticed these flowers. I just had to get a photo of them. So I used my cell phone. I think the photos turned out pretty well for being from my cell phone.

Anyway the tag on them said Ranunculus Mix Perennials. I think they are gorgeous flowers. Especially the photo of the pink and yellow ones.

So today I thought I would look up Ranunculus and here is a little of what I found.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Ranunculales

Family: Ranunculaceae

Genus: Ranunculus

I also found out that all Ranunculus species are poisonous when they are eaten fresh by livestock. But apparently they taste pretty bad and they cause blistering in the mouth so this keeps animals from wanting to eat very many of them. I don't blame them one bit. Oh and Buttercups are in this Genus of plants - I think is how you would say that. Maybe? And it also looks like humans probably ought to be careful when handling them as well.

As I have written all of this down - it makes me think that you can not always judge something from the outside. Often times looks are very deceiving. There are so many lessons in nature for us to learn. Sometimes we just need to slow down long enough to learn them.