CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 337 



A NEW GENUS OF RANUNCULACE.E. 



BY EDWARD LEE GREENE. 



KUMLIENIA. 



Sepals 5, oval or oblong, white-petaloid, deciduous. Pet- 

 als 5, consisting of a minute, oval, fleshy, nectariferous-pitted 

 lamina raised on a slender claw. Stamens indefinite; an- 

 thers white, round-oval, obtuse, a half line long, on slender 

 filaments of a line and a half. Carpels capitate, lanceolate, 

 3 lines long, thin-membranaceous, pilose pubescent, brown, 

 marginless, but with sutural lines, and lateral, parallel vein- 

 lets, the cross-section narrow-rhombic: style short, very 

 slender, uncinate-recurved at apex. Seed ascending, a half 

 line long, narrowly oblong, acutish at each end, not at all 

 compressed, dark brown, with microscopic striae, in matu- 

 rity detached and slipping freely from end to end of the 

 utricular pod. 



A glabrous, acaulescent perennial, witli round-reniform, 

 crenately, 5-lobed, long-petioled leaves, and slender, reclin- 

 ing, 1 — 2-flowered scapes, inhabiting moist rocks in the 

 Tosemite Valley and other similar localities of the Sierra 

 Nevada of California. 



K. hystricula. — Ranunculus (Aphanoslemma) hystriculus, Gray. Proc. 

 Am. Acad. vii. 328; Brewer & Watson, Bot. Cal., i. 6. 



If there is anything in the general appearance of the plant 

 here described which suggests affinity with the genus to 

 which the authorities above named have referred it, it must 

 be the outline of the carpels; and these do indeed somewhat 

 faintly recall those of the section Cer otocephalus, but not 

 Aphanostemma, in which latter section they are not different 

 from those of Ranunculus proper. But, in all Ranunculi, 

 of whatever group or section, the fruit is a compressed 



Issued January 6, 1886. 



