28 RANUNCULACE^. Ranunculus. 



R. Lenimoni, Gray. Scapiform tufted stems a span or two high, 1-2-flowered, villous- 

 puhesceut below: leaves thickish, lanceolate, entire : petals 3 lines long, obovate or oblong : 

 akenes in an oval head, very turgid, villous-pubescent. — Proc. Am. Acad. x. 68 ; Brew. & 

 Wats. Bot. Calif, i. 7. — Eastern part of the Sierra Nevada, California, in Sierra Valley 

 Lemmon. 



•1— -t— H — K Terrestrial, at least some of the leaves lobed or divided : no rooting shoots or 



stolons except in R. repens and R. septentrionalis. 

 ++ Calyx clothed externally with long and soft black or brown hairs : arctic or alpine low 



perennials, bearing solitary large flowers : none of the leaves divided to base : akenes 



rather turgid, subulate-beaked. 



R. Macauleyi, Gray. Eoots a fascicle of fleshy fibres : stems a span high : leaves short- 

 petioled, soft-pilose when young, soon glabrous, of thick texture, from almost linear with 

 truncate 2-3-deutate apex to obovate-spatulate and obtusely 3-10-toothed : petals flabelli- 

 form, creniilate, mostly half inch long, deep yellow. — Proc. Am. Acad. xv. 45 ; also in An. 

 Eep. Chief Engineers U. S. A. 1878, p. 1833, as R. nivalis. — Alpine region of the Rocky 

 Mountains in San Juan Co., S. Colorado, at about 11,700 feet, McCauley, Peas':. Too near 

 R. Altaicus, Laxm., which is R. frigidus, Willd. Spec. ii. 1312, & Reichenb. Ic. PI. Crit. iii. 

 t. 289, R. sulphureus of some authors, and perhaps an extreme form of the next species. 

 Akenes not seen. Young carpels with long straight subulate style.^ 



R. nivalis, L. Glabrous or glabrate except the dark-woolly calyx : roots slender-fibrous 

 from a short caudex : stems a span or two high : radical and few lower cauliue leaves 

 slender-petioled, from cuneate-flabeUiform to reniform, 3-5-lobed or deepl}^ cleft, and the 

 lobes diverging : petals obovate or roundish, entire or obcordate-emarginate, a quarter to a 

 third inch long. — Spec. i. 553 (Fl. Lapp. t. 3, f. 2) ; PI. Dan. t. 1699; Schlecht. Animad. 

 Ranunc. ii. 14 ; Reichenb. Ic. PI. Crit. i. t. 2, f . 6, 7 ; Hook. El. Bor.-Am. i. 17 ; Torr. & Gray, 

 Fl. i. 20, with vars. R. sulphureus, Solaud. in Phipp's Voy. 202, &c., high arctic form, 

 approaching R. altaicus. — Arctic America, from Hudson Bay to Alaska, and sea-coast, south 

 in high Rocky Mountains to lat. 55°. (Greenland, N. Eu., N. Asia.) 



++ ++ Calyx not dark-hairy : akenes (glabrous or pubescent) not muricate nor hispid. 

 = Leaves some of them quite entire (except in R. oxynotus), some simply few-lobed and the 

 lobes quite entire: alpine or subalpine low perennials, one - few-flowered, with fascicled 

 fibrous or tuberous roots : glal)rous. 



a. Radical leaves mostly rouud-reniform and with 5 to 9 roundish lobes or deep crenatures : 

 akenes dorsally cariuate, in an oblong head. 



R. oxynotus, Gray. A span or two high, fibrous-rooted from a short caudex, bearing a 

 rosulate tuft of numerous radical leaves (of half inch or more in diameter) : cauliue one or 

 two, cuneate-flabelliform, 3-5-cleft or parted into oblong or lanceolate-linear lobes : petals 

 broadly obovate, 4 or 5 lines long : head of carpels at maturity about half inch long, with a 

 thick and fleshy receptacle : akenes semi-ovate, compressed, a line long besides the strong 

 subulate beak, glabrous. — Proc. Am. Acad. x. 68; Brew. & Wats. Bot. Calif, i. 7. — High 

 peaks of the central Sierra Nevada, California, Brewer, Lemmon?' 



b. Radical leaves not reniform nor cordate, nor several-lobed : akenes turgid, with roundish 



back, forming a globose head : perennials. 



R. glaberrimus, Hook. A span high, somewhat succulent : root of thickened fascicled 

 fibres : radical leaves from spatulate or oblanceolate to roiaudish or dilated-cuneate, with 

 tapering or obtuse or .sometimes truncate base, and from entire to crenately 2-4-toothed 

 or short-lobed ; cauline 3-cleft or parted into narrower lolies or entire : petals broadly obovate, 

 a third to half inch long : akenes glabrous or minutely pul)csceut, tipped witli a small short 

 beak; the mature head from 3 to 5 lines in diameter. — Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 12, t. 5; Torr. & 

 Gray, Fl. i. 19 ; Brew. & Wats. 1. c. R. hrevicaulis. Hook. Loud. Journ. Bot. vi. 66, not Fl. 



1 Excellent fruiting specimens, collected in Colorado by Miss Eastwood, show the fruiting head.s to 

 be ovate, and akenes small, smootli, tipped with slender straightish but obliquely ascending styles; 

 cf. also Watson, Bot. Gaz. xvi. 346, and Eastwood, Zoe, iv. 2, where variations are described. 



2 Cloud's Rest, Mariposa Co., Calif., Congdon, and near Mineral King Mt. ace. to Coville, Contrib. 

 U. S. Nat. Herb. iv. 56. 



