Ranunculus. RANUNCULACE^E. 31 



R. Eschscholtzii, Schlecht. A span or two or rarely a foot high, glabrous or nearly so, 

 1-3-fiowered, slender-fibrous-rooted from a commonly oblique caudex or short horizontal 

 rootstock : leaves of roundish outline ; radical all 3-5-parted or deeply cleft, and their obovate 

 or cuueate divisions mostly lobed or incised; cauliue similar or with oblong to spatulate or 

 lanceolate and often entire divisions : petals a quarter to nearly half inch long : akenes 

 glabrous, with slender-subulate and mostly straight style of more than half their length and 

 more or less persistent as a beak. — Animad. Ranunc. ii. 16, t. 1 ; Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 18 ; 

 Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 21 ; Ledeb. Fl. Ross. i. 37. R. nivalis, var. Eschscholtzii, Wats. Bot. 

 King Exp. 8. — N. Alaska and Aleutian Islands to the Cascade Mountains and south to 

 those of Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains south to Colorado in the alpine regions. ^ 



R. affinis, R- Br. A span to a foot high, pilose pubescent to glabrous, few- to several- 

 flowered : leaves various, but the cauline with linear or narrow oblanceolate divisions : petals 

 light yellow, a quarter to a third inch long and obovate, but occasionally small and incon- 

 spicuous : akenes densely short-pubescent varying to glabrous : small and short mostly 

 recurved style ranch shorter than the ovary, at most a quarter of the length of the akene, 

 often only its thickish base persistent at maturity. — R. Br. in Parry, 1st Voy. Suppl. to App. 

 265 ; Richards, in Frankl. 1st Journ. ed. 2, App. 751 (reprint, p. 23) ; Lange, Medd. Grcenl. 57, 

 & Fl. Dan. t. 3029 ; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 371. R. arcticus, Richards, in Frankl. 1st Journ. 

 ed. 1, App. 741 (reprint, p. 13). R. amccnus, Ledeb. Fl. Alt ii. 320, & Ic. t. 113. R.pedatiji- 

 dus, Schlecht. I.e. 18, &c., probably not Smith.'^ R. auncoiiius, Hook. f. Arc. PI. 283, 312. — 

 Throughout arctic America, and southward to Labrabor^ and the Rocky Mountains to 

 Colorado. (N. Asia, Greenland.) Very variable, quite distinct from R. auricomus, L., in 

 akenes, styles, &c. ; the typical form small or slender, with even the radical leaves " pedately 

 mnltifid," most of them to near the base. 



Var. Validus, Gray, 1. c. Stouter and larger, with thicker more succulent leaves; 

 the radical (an inch or two long) most of them undivided and roundish, either cordate 

 or truncate or cuneate at base, and from coarsely crenate to 3-7-cleft or parted, occa- 

 sionally some divided and even with divisions petiolulate : forms various and confluent, 

 and passing into the more arctic-alpine slender form. — R. affinis, vars., Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. 

 i. 12, t. 6. R. cardiophijllus. Hook. 1. c. 14, t. 5, & Bot. Mag. t. 2999, but style too long. 

 R. affinis, var. cai-diophi/llus, Gray, Proc. Acad. Philad. 1863, 56, but name oulj^ occasionally 

 appropriate for this whole group of forms. R. auricomus of Amer. authors. — Subarctic 

 America and Canada to Montana, and south through the Rocky Mountains to Utah, 

 Colorado, and N. New Mexico. Var. leiocarpus, Trautv. in Middeudorf, Reise in Sibir. 

 62, has glabrate or glabrous fruit. Var. lasiococcus, Torr. Bot. Wilkes Exped. 213, only a 

 villous-fruited form.* 



3. Head of carpels in fruit globose : styles minute and straight : plant resembling a low 

 form of the variety of the foregoing. 



R. rhomboideus, Goldie. Dwarf, a span or two high, villous-hirsute or almost glabrous, 

 few-flowered : radical leaves from rhombic-ovate or obovate with acute base to rotund and 

 rarely subcordate, and from crenulate to serrate ; lower cauline more cleft, the sessile upper 

 ones 3-5-parted into linear divisions : petals obovate, 2 or 3 lines long : akenes obovate, 

 rounded on the back, glabrous ; the mimxte beak or style inconspicuous. — Edinb. Phil. 

 Journ. vi. 329, t. 11, f. 1 ; Richards. 1. c. ; Hook. 1. c. 12 ; Gray, Man. ed. 5, 42. R. avails, 

 Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 13, t. 6, probably even of Raf. Prec. De'couv. 36, & in Desv. Journ. 

 Bot. vi. 268(1814), from "Canada and Genes.see," which is otherwise wholly obscure.^ 

 R. brevlcaulls, Hook. 1. c. 13, t. 7, a very depressed almost stemless form, with radical 



1 Also on summit of Grayback Mountains, S. Calif., W. G. Wright, ace. to Pari.'ih, Zoe, iv. 161. 



2 Dr. N. L. Britten, Bull. Torr. Club, xviii. 265, maintains the identity of Smith's species, and 

 according to that view R. affinis, R. Br., should become R. pedatlfidus, Smith, while var. validus, 

 Gray, becomes R.pedatifidus, var. cardiophylhis, Britton, 1. c. 



3 Mt. Albert, Gaspe, Lower Canada, J. A. Allen. 



4 Var. micropetalns, Greene, Pittonia, ii. 110 (/?. Ariznnicus, var. subnffinis, Greene, 1. c. 60, 

 not Gray), is from character a slender small-flowered form from tlie San Francisco Moimtains, Arizona. 



5 In his provisional notes upon the genus, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 371, Dr. Gray evidently through 

 clerical error ascribes the name rhomboideus to Rafinesque, while clearly having ovalis in mind, as 

 his reference and liabitat show. 



