1917] Fernald,— New or critical Ranunculi 135 
inundations, may be much less fertile than the ordinary pink-flowered 
plant of less inundated situations. That it has not completely lost its 
fertility, however, is shown by good achenes which are found in a 
few heads. 
II. NEW OR CRITICAL SPECIES OR VARIETIES OF 
RANUNCULUS. 
Ranuncuuus Purs Richardson, var. prolificus, n. var., ramis 
valde adscendentibus 7-50-floris; foliis bracteiformibus simplicibus 
vel subsimplicibus numerosissimis, inferioribus 1-4 em. longis. 
Branches strongly ascending, 7-50-flowered: the simple or sub- 
simple bracteal leaves numerous; the lower 1—4 cm. long.— MAGDA- 
LEN ISLANDS: wet meadow, Grindstone, July 22, 1912, Fernald, 
Bartram, Long & St. John, no. 7482 (TYPE in Gray Herb.). 
Similar specimens referred in the herbarium sometimes to R. Purshit, 
sometimes to R. sceleratus, and by some collectors suggested as a 
hybrid of these two species, have been examined from Michigan and 
Montana. On the Magdalen Islands, where this plant forms a char- 
acteristic large colony in a meadow, no R. sceleratus has been found; 
and the plant there seems to be a definite, though extreme, variation 
from R. Purshii. In the typical form of the species the branches are 
prostrate or only slightly ascending and bear only 1-4 flowers, and 
the simple or subsimple bracteal leaves, when present, are rarely more 
than one or two in number and very small. 
RANUNCULUS FLAMMULA AND R. REPTANS IN NORTH AMERICA.— 
Although often treated as a variety of Ranunculus Flammula L., R. 
reptans L. seems to merit recognition as a species. It is of general 
distribution in boreal regions, while R. Flammula of temperate Eurasia 
is known in North America only from southeastern Newfoundland, 
where it is associated with many other typical western European 
species unknown elsewhere in North America, and on the Pacific slope 
from southern British Columbia to California. Slender extremes of 
R. Flammula and the coarsest extremes of R. reptans somewhat simu- 
late one another but all so-called transitional material seen by the 
writer is definitely referable to one or the other species in its floral 
characters and entirely consistent in geographic range. The usually 
stout ascending or merely trailing R. Flammula of Europe, Newfound- 
