158 NOTE ON DOUBLE FLOWERS OF RANUNCULUS FICARIA, ETC. 
of 8. herbacea, but the style is more elongated, and both the pedicel and 
ovary are densely silky. Our S. Grahami agrees with this in its elon- 
gated style and elongated silky pedicel, but the hairs stop short at the 
very base of the ovary, leaving the latter quite naked. In both S. her- 
bacea and 8. polaris the leaves are nearly round, quite naked, and gene- 
rally retuse ; in 8. Grahami they are about three-quarters as broad as 
long, silky beneath and generally pointed, and the habit of growth is 
considerably more robust. Of 8. herbacea Anderson writes : — " Capsulse 
occurrunt pilosae, quales in alpe Dovre Norvegiae a cl. Lindblom de- 
tects fuerunt, sed in eadera stirpe etiam glaberrimse." 
Amongst the British Willows we have a very gradual transition 
between forms with completely naked and densely silky ovaries m 
8. nigricans, phylicx [folia , and imdnlata, so that in these three, 8. her- 
bacea, Grahami, and polaris, botanists disposed to combine may argue, 
with reason, that we have only three varieties of one species, whilst 
others will probably consider them distinct. 
NOTE ON DOUBLE FLOWERS OF RANUNCULUS 
FICARIA, ETC. 
By Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, F.L.S., etc. 
The chief interest attaching to these flowers resides in the structure 
of the carpels and ovules. Under ordinary circumstances, the latera J 
compressed carpels are spirally disposed on a nearly globular thalamus, 
and each contains a single inverted ovule, with the raphe next the p 
centa ; but in the double varietv the carpels were found to be open, 
i.e. disunited at the margins, and each bore two imperfect ovules upo* 
its inner surface a little way above the base, and about midway between 
the edges of the carpel and the midrib, the ovules being partly enclose 
within a little depression or pouch, which reminded one of the sum 
pit on the petals. On closer examination the ovules were fouu 
spring from the two lateral divisions of the midrib, the vascular core s 
of which were prolonged under the form of barred or spiral, nisi o 
tubes into the outer coating of the ovule. 
The ovules themselves were straight, or partially curved a 
