300 RANUNCULACE.E. 



Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 375 (1886), in part, excl. R. Ludovicianus. 

 Size, habit, fl. and fr. of type, bixt leaves cleft below the middle into 3 

 broad cuneate-obovate coarsely toothed lobes. — The prevailing buttercup 

 of western California, apparently not reaching the foothills of the Sierra 

 eastward, hni ranging north and south toward the seaboard almost 

 throughout the State, and running into several very well characterized 

 varieties or subspecies, all of them carrying invariably that one mark, the 

 multiplicity of petals, by which, along with the reflexed sepals, the species 

 is distinguished from its European analogiae, R. acris. I here take as the 

 typical form the common plant of the Bay region. From the summits of 

 the Oakland Hills down to the bay and the ocean, the unpastured hills 

 and level lands are almost yellow with its bloom in March. Var. 1 is of 

 the interior, about Suisun, and also in San Mateo Co., occupying low 

 meadow lands adjacent to the brackish marshes. Var. 2 belongs to the 

 middle elevations of the Mt. Diablo Eange and the valleys among them, 

 from Niles to the hills east of Livermore, thence southward to San Luis 

 Obispo Co. It was a part of my R. Ludovicianus. Var. 3 is confined to 

 the wet meadows that lie back of the ocean in San Mateo Co., doubtless 

 also reaching San Francisco Co. In cultivation at Berkeley it behaves 

 very unlike the other forms, is almost annual, ;. ^., many individuals 

 come to flowering the first year from the seed, and die before the end of 

 the year. Other individuals are of perennial duration. Var. 4 is n. 374 

 of the State Survey, from Santa Barbara. R. Ludovicianus, properly 

 defined, is a very different plant. 



14. R. Ludovicianus, Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. ii. 58 (1886), excl. 

 plaut of San Luis Obispo Co. Ascending, less than a foot high; stems 

 stout, striate, and, with the foliage, somewhat villous-tomentose or ter- 

 nate: radical leaves parted into 3 broad coarsely and callously toothed 

 segments; cauline parted into few narrow lobes: jjetals as in the last: 

 achenes larger and much less compressed, often sparsely strigose-hispid 

 and somewhat papillose. — In mountain meadows of the southeastern 

 parts of the State, from Kern Co., Mrs. Curran, to San Bernardino, 

 Parish, n. 1890. In the original account of the species I erroneously 

 included with it the var. canesceiis of the last, thus leading Dr. Gray to 

 merge the whole in var. lalilobus of the preceding. 



15. R. ru§ruIosus, Greene, Pittonia, ii. 58 (1890). Nearly glabrous, 

 the stems slender and decumbent, or stoiitish and reclining, IJ2 — 3 ft. 

 long: leaves about 5-parted or -divided, the divisions cleft into linear or 

 lanceolate segments: petals 7—11, spatulate-oblong, ^2 ^^- long: achenes 

 barely a line long including the short recurved style, the sides uneven 

 with low rugosities. — This appears as in some sort replacing R. Califor- 

 nicus in the southeastern mountains and foothills. The type is from the 

 Chowchilla Mts., a slender suberect plant. A coarser form .with broader 



