B4 LAWSON : EEVISION OF THE 



or iiicise-dentate. Sepals refloxed. Petals scarcely longer than the sepals. Carpels 

 slightly wrinkled. Juice acrid. Annnal or biennial. Celery-leaved Crowfoot. 



Ranunculus sceleratus. Linn. Sp. Tl., p. ÏTG. Fl. Dan., t. 3*71. Engl. Bot., t. 681. 

 Biria, Eenonc, 41. Willd., Sp. PI., IL, p. 1315. Schlecht., Animad. Ranuuc. IL, p. 10. 

 Hook., Fl. Scot., p. ITL Wither., Arr. Br. Pts.. II., p. 50.5. Elliot, S. Carol., IL, p. 59. 

 Lightfoot, Fl. Scot., ed. 2, I., p. 291. Pursh, Fl. Am., IL, p. 393. DC. Syst. Nat., I., p. 

 2G8. Prod., I., p. 34. Smith, Eug. Fl., III., p. 48. Eichardson, in Franklin's Jour., p. 14. 

 Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., I., p. 15. Torr. & Gr., Fl. N. Am., I., p. 19. Torrey, Fl. N. Y., I., p. 13. 

 Chapman, Fl. S. U.S., p. 8. Hook, f., Arct. PL, p. 283. Student's Fl. Brit., p. t. Cray, 

 Man., ed. 5, p. 42. Lawson, Rauunc. Canad., p. 38. Watson, Bibl. Index, I., p. 24. 

 Macoun, Cat., Ko. 38. 



Herha sceJerata. Apuleius, (Paris, 1528). Mentzelius, Index Multiling., p. 25Y, (1682). 

 Herba Sardoa. Guilandinus, (Padua, 1558). 

 Apium aquaticmn. Tragus, (Strasburg, 1552). 

 Ranunc. palustris apiifolio lœvis. C. Bauhin, (16*71). 

 Aphim risus (apio riso, Ital.) J. Bauhin, (1650). 



Flooded gravelly banks of rivers from Canada to lat. 67°. — Richardson, Douglas, 

 Drummond. Sides of ditches and wet places, Cataraqui Creek and other bays along the 

 shore of Lake Ontario, and along the coiirse of streams running into that Lake. — Lawson. 

 St. Catherines and Maiden. — Dr. P. W. Maclagan. Beloeil Mountain. — Dr. John Bell. 

 Ditches arou.nd Belleville, commpn ; G-aspé ; Point Levis, P. Q. — Macoun. Painy Lake and 

 Slave Lake, — Capt. Bark. Lake Winnipeg. — Barnston. York Factory. — McTavish. Common 

 about Hamilton. — Logie. Montreal. — Herb. McGill Coll. Great plains by Peace River to 

 British Columbia. — Macoun. St. Stephen, Shediac and River Charles, N.B. — Foivler. 



Sir Joseph Hooker gives the distribution of this species as : "Europe (Arctic), N. Asia, 

 N. India to Bengal; introduced in America, &c." There appears, however, to be no good 

 reason to doubt its being indigenous in America, where it is widely spread throughout 

 British America and the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, both in coast dis- 

 tricts and on the plains of the interior, from lat. 67° in the north, south to S. Carolina and 

 the Platte River. 



The English Acrnacular name of this plant has not been followed by American 

 •authors. It is given as the " Celery-leaved Crowfoot " in the following English works : — 

 Witheriug's Arrangement of British Plants, Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, Smith's English 

 Flora, Hooker's British Flora, Hull's British Flora, Hooker and Arnott's British Flora, 

 Babington's Manual of British Botany, and no doubt in many other books. The Society 

 of Botanists at Litchfield, in 1782, undertook to give an exact literal rendering in English 

 of the Latin " Syslema Vegetahilium " of Liunœus, in which they had the assistance of a 

 laro'e number of eminent authorities, inchiding Dr. Samiiel Johnson. In this work, 

 instead of giving the vernacular English names of the plants, the method was adopted 

 generally of substitilting for them English words as nearly equivalent as possible to the 

 Latin Linnœan " trival," or specific names. Ranimculus sceleratus thus became the " Baneful 

 Ranxmculus." Loudon, who in his publications took great pains to po^^ularize Natural 

 History, by the use of English names, rendered it the " Hurtful Crowfoot." Gray, prob- 

 ably thinking that his predecessors had not hit upon the true rendering of ''sceleratus," 

 called our plant, with American frankness, the " Cursed Crowfoot." He is followed by 



