8 
RANUNCULACEJE. (CROWFOOT FAMILY.) 
ish or downy beneath. Filaments slightly club-shaped ; anthers 
oblong. 
Tribe III. RANUNCULfejE. The Crowfoot Tribe. 
€ULUS, L. Crowfoot. Buttercup. 
Sepals 5. Petals 5, larger than the calyx, with a little pit or 
scale at the base inside. Achenia numerous in a head, flattened, 
pointed , the seed erect. — Annuals or perennials : stem-leaves 
alternate. Flowers solitary or somewhat corymbed, yellow, rare¬ 
ly white. (Sepals and petals rarely only 3, the latter often more 
than 5. Stamens occasionally few in number.) — (Name from 
Rana, a frog, the aquatic species growing where those animals 
abound.) 
§ 1. Petals white , the claw yellow , with a little cavity or pore: fruits 
transversely wrinkled. Aquatics , the immersed leaves many tints 
divided into capillary lobes. 
1. R. aqiuitilis, L. (White Water-Crowfoot.) Stem 
floating ; the leaves all immersed and filiformly dissected, or some¬ 
times with the uppermost emersed and 3-parted, the divisions cut and 
toothed; petals oblong-obovate. — Ponds and flowing waters. June, 
Aug. — The most common form is the Var. fluviatilis, with all the 
leaves immersed and capillary ; the state with emersed leaves is rare¬ 
ly met with in the United States. 
§ 2. Petals yellow , with a little scale at the base : fruits not wrinkled or 
roughened. (All but No. 2 terrestrial.) 
* Aquatic, perennial: immersed leaves filiformly dissected. 
R. Purshli, Richards. (Yellow W t ater-Crowfoot.) 
Stem floating, with the leaves all dissected into several times forked 
nliform divisions; or sometimes rooting in the mud, with the emerged 
eaves kidney-shaped or round and variously lobed or cleft ; petals 5 
-8, much larger than the calyx; carpels in a spherical head, pointed 
with a straight beak. (R. multifidus, Pursh , Bi*el. R. lacustn* 
Beck.) — St agnant water, Massachusetts to Michigan. May- July-- 
Stems 2°-4 long, round and tubular. Petals bright yellow, mostly 
as large as in the common Buttercup, No. 16. 
. * * Leaves all undivided : perennial\ glabrous. 
* * “romula, L. (Spearwort.) Stem reclining, root* 
mg at the lower joints; leaves lanceolate, obscurely toothed or entire, 
acute, the lower ones petioled; carpels in a spherical head, T™** 
Kith a slender beak. — Ditches, &c., common, probably indigenous- 
June - Aug. Stems l°-2° long. Flower 4 ' broad. 
