Frog and buttercup

What strange bedfellows you appeared to us, with Pliny before Linnaeus christening you Rana, the frog, and then ranunculus, the buttercup -- chiefly because the two of you enjoy a marshy habitat. Yet wait, there's more: the digits, Frog, you grew for hopping, grasping, and your digitate leaves, Buttercup; both of you wearing green shading from light to emerald. And if that were not enough, one of you sings between dusk and dawn, one in sunlight playing upon petals with their butter-yellowy sheen . . . Sing on. Our own world were diminished if one or both of you, some summer day, were gone.