BUTTERCUPS AND CLEMATIS. 87 
unmeaning name is applied, that of Crowfoots, to species with 
dissected leaves. Rational teaching should discourage these su- 
perfluous appellations, which are vague, carry not beyond one 
language and are almost useless burdens to the memory. If the 
well known name Ranunculus needs interpretation at all, then 
the literal translation into “ Frog-plant” would be the best, 
particularly as many of the species frequent moist meadows near 
the swampy habitations of the frogs. 
The species most common of all on our grass-lands, both on 
hills and plains, is Ranunculus lappaceus, so called, because the 
little fruitlets secede readily when ripe, and cling with their 
hooked style to clothing just like the bracts of the flower-heads 
of a Burdock (Arctium Lappa). On moist depressions particu- 
larly of the Murray-regions and on our western rivers may be 
sought for the little Mousetail-plant, a curious annual with 
insignificant flowers, narrow radical leaves and a stalked fruit- 
spike, which so precisely resembles a mousetail, as to have given 
also in science the plant its generic name, Myosurus, the species, 
one widely scattered in both hemispheres, bearing the name 
M. minimus. However unlike in external appearance, the 
Mousetail-plant approaches the Ranunclé8 in affinity very closely 
indeed. The differences of Myosurus consist in sepals extended 
downward beyond the point of insertion, in a more tubular base 
of the petals, in the elongated axis of the fruit and in a pendent 
(not erect) seed of each fruitlet. This instance demonstrates, 
that internal structure far more rules the affinity of plants, than 
external similarity. 
In systematic sequence the lovely Clematis-climbers must 
next engage our attention. They obtained their name from the 
tendril-like twisting of their branchlets and particularly leaf- 
stalks. They are remarkable in the vast order of ranunculaceous 
plants for their mostly climbing growth and always opposite 
leaves ; these habitual distinctions are augmented by petal-like 
sepals contiguous at the margin before expansion, absence of or 
diminute petals and often a very elongated fruit-style. 
Of the two kinds of Clematis, which belong to our colony, one 
frequents particularly the sea-coast, Clematis microphylla (the 
