SPECIES OF RANUNCULUS. 69 



Compared with R. grandifolius, R. cortusafolius, Willd., is distin- 

 guishable to the eye at once by its altogether less robust, stiff, coarse 

 and hairy, in fact, somewhat comparatively delicate and slender habit, 

 resembling rather that of R. acris, L., or bulbosus, L„ its more stiff or 

 strigose, shorter, thinly sprinkled, spreading hairs, those of the leaves 

 being distinctly bulbous, its smaller leaves less stiff and coarse in 

 texture, crenate, with few broad, blunt teeth or lobes, and generally 

 speckled with black, its smaller, fewer, remote, not crowded, corym- 

 bose flowers, on long, slender, thin stalks, its fruit-spikes always cylin- 

 dric-oblong, with the receptacle thickly hirsute at the base, and the 

 achsenia mostly subhispid or sprinkled (especially the lower) with a 

 few short, scattered, coarse, subglandular hairs. The root is also 

 smaller, with less thick or fleshy divisions, fascicled in a close, round 

 tuft or bundle, and not compressed or palmate. 



Nothing like R. cortuscefolius, Willd., as here restricted, has ever 

 occurred in Madeira, either to myself or to any other botanist of my 

 acquaintance. There exists however in the Banksian Herbarium an 

 undoubted specimen of the plant, marked " 1. Madeira, IV. Masson," 

 pasted on the same sheet with another specimen, marked " 2. Teneriffe, 

 Fr. Masson, 1778 ;" the whole sheet thus occupied having been sub- 

 sequently marked by Professor De Candolle, prior to the publication of 

 his c Systema/ in his own handwriting, " R. cortuscefolius, W., /?, Tene- 

 riffa, Pers.," although the upper stem or floral leaves are entire in No. 

 2 only. The habitat, Madeira, affixed to No. 1, I cannot but regard 

 however as a mistake, arising from some accidental interchange of spe- 

 cimens or tickets, possibly by Masson himself, who botanized in Tene- 

 riffe after Madeira. 



R. cortusafolius, & Teneriffa, DC., if resting on no better authority 

 than the above No. 2, is a very slight form or variety indeed, and 

 scarcely worth distinguishing. The spikes in this specimen are how- 

 ever more slender or linear-oblong (being only 2 lines broad and 6 

 long), than in any other specimen observed. It consists merely of the 

 upper part of the plant or portion of a panicle (not corymb). The 

 lower leaves are wholly wanting, but the hairs are bulbous on the rest, 

 and the plant undoubtedly is nothing but a trifling form or state of the 

 true R. cortusafolms, Willd., of Teneriffe. 



On the other hand, it may be reasonably doubted whether R. cortu- 

 safolius, /?, sylvaticus, Webb, be really a Canarian plant at all ; and I 



