538 



RANUNCUL.ACEAE 



Plains or low rolling hills: Sacramento Valley south to Contra Costa Co. 

 It passes into R. californieus. 



Locs. Antioch, Davy 925; Montezuma Hills, Plait; Vanden, Vacaville and Violet, Solano 

 Co., Jepson (hardly at all silky) ; Sweeney Greek, Jepson 8254; n\v. Solano Co., Jepson (dorsal 

 keel of achenes hispidulose) ; Cannon, Jcpson 6782; Chico, ace. Gray. The var. BLANKINSHIPII 

 Rob. (achenes hispidulose) occurs on the low foothills of western Yolo Co. and western 

 Solano Co. 



Refs. RANUNCULUS CANUS Benth. PI. Hartw. 294 (1848), type loc. moist valley fields, 

 Butte Co.; Gray, Proc. Am, Acad. 21:374 (1886). The type is Hartweg 1626. This number 

 in the Herbarium Benthamianum (Kew) is remarkably silky and we have seen nothing quite 

 like it; but the same number in the Herbarium Hookerianum (Kew) is less hairy and is well 

 matched by the specimens from the Montezuma Hills cited above, which, in turn, grade into 

 plants from other stations. The soft white pubescence is most marked on the early growth. 

 E. californieus var. canus Brew. & Wats. Bot. Cal. 1:8 (3876). R. hesperoxys Greene, Erythoa, 

 2:189 (1894), based on spms. from Antioch and Chico. R. canus var. hesperoxys Davis, Minn. 

 Bot. Stud. 2:475 (1900); Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 200 (1901). Var. BLANKINSHIPII Rob.; 

 Gray, Syn. Fl. I 1 : 35 (1895), type loe. Capay, J. W. BlanMnship. R. blankinshipii Heller, 

 Muhl. 1:40 (1904). 



12. R. californieus Benth. CALIFORNIA BUTTERCUP. Stems mostly eaespitose, 

 arising from a cluster of stout fibrous perennial roots, erect or ascending. 9 to 

 18 inches high, freely branching and many-flowered; herbage hirsute (especially 

 below) to nearly glabrous, the leaves often silky beneath ; leaves ovate or roundish 

 in outline, 1 to 2 (or 3) inches long, ternately divided, and again divided, parted 

 or lobed, the earlier with the broad divisions shallowly and mostly obtusely lobed, 

 the later with the laciniately and sharply cleft divisions less broad or narrowly 

 linear ; flowers 6 to 11 lines broad ; sepals usually somewhat petal-like, closely 

 reflexed ; petals 9 to 16, uncommonly as few as 7 or 8, obovate to oblong ; achenes 

 glabrous, strongly flattened, nearly as broad as long, % to l 1 /^ lines long, very 

 rounded dorsally, the ventral side straightish ; beak very short, mostly stoutish 

 and closely recurved, sometimes slender and slightly recurving. 



Open hills and moist valleys, our most common species, abundant in the Coast 

 Ranges and south to Southern California. Also occuring in the Great Valley 

 and neighboring foothills but localized or less common. 



Geog. Note. The exact, that is detailed geographic limits of this species have not been 

 well worked out and are perhaps not susceptible of sharp topographic definition on account 

 of merging with its varieties and with R. canus and possibly with R. oceidentalis. We have 

 never, however, observed a multipetalous buttercup in the Sierra Nevada proper; on the other 

 hand Ranunculus californieus is frequent everywhere in central California and often dominant, 

 coloring leagues upon leagues of gi'assy hills in the late winter and early spring with its 

 profusion of yellow flowers. We take as typical, for purposes of our diagnosis, the prevailing 

 plant of the central coast hills bearing flowers with many petals. Its small earliest leaves arc 

 shallowly 3-lobed, but otherwise entire or sparingly toothed. These axe followed by deeply 

 3-parted leaves, the broad segments again 3-lobed or -cleft, or laeiniate-toothed. The larger 

 later leaves are similar, but usually cut up into narrower or linear segments. 



The multipetalous R. californieus and the 5-petaled R. oceidentalis are so similar in habit, 

 in flower structure and even occasionally in number of petals, and both are so variable as to 

 the beak character of their achenes and as to pubescence, that they cannot in extreme forms 

 be separated except by an arbitrary cleavage. The most highly developed type of each, how- 

 ever, is a distinct unit, and this extreme type represents in each case a wide-spread dominant 

 in exclusive territory. By reason of this consideration and on account of a series of named 

 variants centering around each type, it seems wholly desirable to retain these two as species. 

 Tlie achenes of R. californieus are roundish and very flat, with a stout and very short style, the 

 tip of which is bent backward in such a way as to leave little space between it and the bodj 

 of the achene. This type of style is, however, not constant, since slender nearly erect styles 

 in one direction and broad styles in the other direction give a considerable range of variation. 

 On the other hand, while the achenes of R. oceidentalis are essentially similar to R. californieus, 

 the beak of the achene in R. oceidentalis, in its most characteristic form, projects forward, 

 or if recurving lies forward of the median longitudinal line of the achene. This feature is, 

 however, usually not true of its varieties. In the Sierra foothills the var. eisenii exhibits within 

 narrow geographic limits certain beak forms resembling those of R. californieus and other 

 forms which intergrade continuously to R. oceidentalis. The narrow-beaked type of achene 

 of R. ealifornicus, therefore, passes by intergrades into those of R. oceidentalis, just as the 



