160 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
Dr. Owen died in 1897, but Mrs. Owen continued to reside in 
Springfield till 1907 when she moved to the home of her daughter in 
Plandome, Long Island. Here she lived till her death. It was the 
fading away of a happy old age, and the end came on a bright morning 
with the room flooded with sunshine, which she always loved, and 
filled with iris, columbine and corn flowers. She was a woman of 
strong faith and she lived true to the motto of her mother’s family, 
"Post tenebris: speramus lumen de lumine," which she loved to 
translate, " After the darkness we hope for light from the source of 
light." 
Mrs. Owen had two children, Walter L. Owen, architect, deceased, 
and Amelia, wife of Dr. James Sullivan, who survives her. 
In preparing this paper I wish to acknowledge the kind assistance 
of Mr. F. Schuyler Mathews of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Miss 
Caroline G. Soule of Brookline, Massachusetts, and Mrs. Henry P. 
Tallant of Philadelphia. Acknowledgments are also extended to the 
Springfield Botanical Society and the Springfield Art Museum for the 
loan of the plate for the portrait accompanying this article. 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. 
THE VARIATIONS OF RANUNCULUS CYMBALARIA. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
Ranunculus Cymbalaria Pursh, originally described from the saline 
marshes of Onondaga Lake, New York, is found in saline habitats in 
the northern or cooler areas of North America and Asia. In America 
it extends southward along the coasts to New Jersey and California 
and through the interior to western New York, Illinois, Texas and 
central Mexico; and it reappears in South America on the high Andes 
from Ecuador to Argentina (R. tridentatus, var. minor HBK.). 
Throughout the greater portion of its range the species seems to be 
essentially uniform: a fleshy, strictly glabrous plant with small 
flowers (6-9 mm. broad) having the subequal sepals and petals 2-4 
mm. long; the stamens in one or two rows and with subglobose 
anthers; and the head of young carpels 1.5-5 mm. high during anthe- 
sis (before the falling of the last petals and stamens). In this plant, 
which is the characteristic coastwise and northern form of the spe- 
