RANUNCULACE. 59 
quite entire, or the lower ones slightly lobed at the apex. Flowers 
numerous, drooping, about 1 inch in diameter. Sepals 5, shortly- 
obovate, truncate or slightly emarginate, pale yellowish green, with 
a dull purple border, connivent in flower, spreading in fruit. Petals 
about half as long as the stamens, claw very short, the inner lip a 
little shorter than the outer, erosely toothed. Pistils usually 3, their 
styles not exceeding the stamens. Carpels on a short stalk, slightly 
connate at their base, leathery, wrinkled transversely, glandular, 
the persistent style forming a beak scarcely one-third the length of 
the carpel itself. Whole of the lower part of the plant glabrous, 
upper portion glandular-pubescent ; unbranched part of the stem 
perennial, leaves evergreen, thick and leathery in texture, smooth 
and shining above, paler below, with the mid-vein prominent. 
This plant can scarcely be confounded with the last, as the 
inflorescence is different, the individual flowers smaller and deeply 
cup-shaped, instead of open and nearly flat; while the perrenial 
stem furnished with pedate leaves will at all seasons distinguish this 
from H. viridis. 'The odour is also much more disagreeably fetid. 
Stinking Hellebore, Bear’s-foot. 
French, fHellébore Fétide, or Pied de Griffon, German, Die Stinkende Niesswurz. 
Called Bear’s-foot from the shape of its leaves, and fetidus from its smell. It is a 
powerful poison, and possesses the active properties of the genus even more strongly 
than those which are recognized as medicines. At one time both this species and 
H. viridis were admitted into the British Pharmacopeeia, but great caution is necessary 
in their administration, 
SUB-TRIBE IL—ISOPY RE &. 
Leaves ternately or somewhat pinnately decompound. Flowers 
regular, solitary, or arranged in irregular cymes. 
GENUS XI.—AQUILEGIA. Linn. 
Sepals 5, equal, petaloid, deciduous. Petals 5, equal, with a 
very short claw, above which the petal is produced into a hollow 
funnel-shaped tube, passing backwards between the sepals, and 
terminating in a spur more or less curved round towards the 
peduncle. Interior stamens sterile, with membranous expanded 
filaments applied to the ovary. Carpels 5, in one whorl, becoming 
at maturity dehiscent follicles, slightly connate at the base. 
