1892.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 3 



had quite changed his miud on the limitations of species, having 

 had the experience of unraveling the Gamopetalre behind him, 

 and the advantage of much more material for study accumulated 

 in the Cambridge Herbarium. He then recognized three 

 eastern s'i^ecies, B. repens, L., B. mpteninonalis, Poir., and R. 

 fascicidaris, Muhl. The name R. hispid us, Michx., used by 

 Torrey and Gray in 1838 for one of the sj^ecies, was now 

 employed by Dr. Gray for a different one, in this following 

 Hooker, Fl.Bor. Am. i. 19. 



My observations have led me to conclude that R. repens, L. 

 and R. fascicular is, Muhl., are well defined in this last paper of 

 Dr. Gray. But under his R. sep)lenlrionahs , Poir., it seems to 

 me that there are at least two species. He notes that he takes 

 this " to include the greater part of the assemblage of forms 

 which have passed for R. rcpens m this country.'' 



1. Ranunculus kepens L. Sj). PI. 55-1 (1753). 



This European species is sparingly naturalized in south- 

 eastern New York and New Jerse}-, being much less abundant 

 than eitheri?. bulbosus, L., or R. acris, L., the common field 

 buttercups of the region. It occurs from Nova Scotia and 

 Ontario to Virginia and is reported from various places in the 

 interioi'. Dr. Gray notes that it is indigenous in some places, 

 but I have no other evidence of this. On the label of a 

 specimen collected by Mr. Coville at Oxford, N. Y., in 188G, 

 Dr. Gray has written "truly indigenous," but Mr. Coville 

 tells me that this is a mistake. Dr. Gray indicates that it 

 extends to New Mexico. 



It is a creeping, stoloniferous plant, with some of the 

 branches ascending, and grows in dense patches along road- 

 sides, etc., preferring moist soil. It is quite glabrous or 

 somewhat pubescent ; its leaves are pinnately tri-foliolate, 

 very broadly ovate or orbicular in outline, the segments broad, 

 deeply incised and lobed, and usually, so far as I have observed 

 the fresh plant, blotched at the base of the lobes ; the flowers 

 are as large as those of R. aci'is, the petals much longer than the 

 spreading sepals ; the mature achenes are oval, slightly longer 

 than broad, narrowly margined and abruptly tipped with a 

 short, subulate, nearly straight style, not more than one-fourth 

 of their length. 



2. Ranunculus Macounii. 



Ranuncidus hisjndus Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. i. 19, (1830), 

 not of Michx. 



This is a si^reading or trailing hirsute species, not stoloni- 



