65 



On Ranunculus Creticus, cortus^efolius, and grandifolius of 



Authors; by E. T. Lowe, M.A. 



Considerable uncertainty seems, from their first discovery, to have 

 attended the right determination of the common large Canarian and 

 Madeiran species of Ranunculus. The original specimens sent from 

 both these localities by Masson, in 1776 and 1778, and still existing 

 in the Banksian Herbarium, were indiscriminately referred by Dr. So- 

 lander to R. Creticus, L. Persoon however in his ' Enchiridium,' or 

 'Synopsis' (Paris, 1805-7), under the name of R. Teneriffa, and Will- 

 denow, in his 'Enumeratio' (Berlin, 1809), under the name of R. cor- 

 tusafolius, described the Canarian plant as a distinct species ; and this 

 determination, though indorsed by De Candolle, in his ' Sy sterna' and 

 • Prodromus,' under the name conferred by Willdenow, and illustrated 

 no less by the publication of the admirable figure in Delessert's ' Icones,' 

 i. t. 36, than by the full discriminative and exact description in the 

 ' Phytographia Canariensis' (though his var. ft may perhaps be the 

 true Madeiran plant) of my late lamented friend Webb, seems still not 

 to have commanded complete acceptance, though more perhaps from 

 certain theoretic views than from absolute practical study of the plants 

 in question. It seems to be still more strongly doubted whether the 

 Madeiran plant, first published by myself, in 1830, under the name of 



R. grandifolius, may not be considered as a form or state of one at 



least of these two species, to both of which it is undoubtedly no less 

 closely allied in physico-botanical, than it is to the Canarian plant, in 



geographical, affinity. 



The result of a protracted correspondence on these points some years 

 ago (in 1844), with another much-regretted friend, the late Dr. Charles 

 Lemann, was an acquiescence in his opinion, formed (as he wrote April 

 10 1844) " with Webb's work before me, and dried specimens of the 

 Ranunculus from the Canaries, Madeira, and Azores," and confirmed 

 by his subsequent examination of the ^ k f^f m ^^ * 

 cor tusafolius, Willd 

 grandifolius was identical with R. Creticus, h. 



Subsequently (in 1846) Dr. Lemann seems to have become again 

 unsettled, and to have reverted to Solander's original reference of the 

 Canarian as well as the Madeiran plant to the Cretan species. 



Unprepared to accept this, though 1 had acqmesced (sec 1 r. m.t. 



but that R. 



VOL. IX. 



