Ranunculus.] I. RANUNCULACEiE (OLIVER). 9 



3 to 20, each with a scale or pit near the base on the inner side. Stamens 

 indefinite, in small-flowered species often few. Carpels indefinite, each with 

 a solitary ascending ovule. Achenes capitate or shortly spicate, beaked with 

 the persistent style, which is often very minute. — Annual or perennial herbs, 

 with entire or divided radical leaves and usually alternate, rarely nearly op- 

 posite, leaves upon the stem. Flowers pedunculate, terminal or rarely axil- 

 lary or sessile and opposite to the leaves, yellow white or red. 



A large genus of temperate and cold climates ; between the tropics, usually confined to 

 mountain ranges. Five of the Tropical African species appear to be peculiar to the conti- 

 nent ; but it is probable, were the entire genus thoroughly worked up, that some of them 

 would prove varieties or geographical races of more widely-spread species. 

 Aquatic plant ; the submerged leaves dissected, with filiform segments. 



Flowers white. Carpels transversely wrinkled {Batrachium) . \. R. aquatilis. 

 Stems 2- or more flowered, exceeding the pinnatifid radical leaves. 

 Flowers pedunculate. 

 Lowest pinnae usually petiolulate ; segments ovate, obovate- or oblan- 

 ceolate-cuueate, 3-lobed and incised. Petals 5. Achenes nu- 

 merous 2. R. pinnatus. 



Radical leaves pinnately laciniate ; segments linear or narrow-oblong. 



Petals 10-15 or more. Achenes not very numerous . . . . Z. R. simensii. 

 Stems 1- or more-flowered ; peduncles exceeding or shorter than the 

 trifid radical leaves. Segments of the leaves obovate- cuneate, broadly 

 3-toothed or irregularly incised. Petals 5. Root fibrous, thickened, 



long and tapering 4. R. oligocarput. 



Peduncles shorter than or scarcely exceeding the radical leaves, which 

 are 3-partite, with deeply 3-fid, often incised segments. Petals 10 



or more. Root fibrous, not thickened .5.2?. temberuii. 



Stems 1- or more-flowered, not exceeding the radical leaves, which are 



pinnatisect, with 3-4 pairs sessile ovate segments. Petals 5 . . 6. .K. oreophytus. 

 Flowers small, sessile or the low^r ones on short peduncles, leaf-opposed. 



Leaves petiolate, 3-partite ; segments cuneate, incised T. R. distriaa. 



1. R. aquatilis, Linn. ; DC. Prod. i. 26. Floating in fresh or brackish 

 water or creeping upon mud, with a branching flaccid stem, often long-drawn 

 out in running water. Submerged leaves divided into capillary, filiform or 

 narrow-linear segments, flaccid or moderately firm. Floating, or upper leaves, 

 more or less rounded in circumscription and variously lobed or cut, often 

 wanting. Flowers axillary, solitary. Stamens often very few. 



Nile Iiand. Abyssinia, prov. Ouodgerate, Petit {ex Rich.), and var. capillacem, with 

 all the leaves divided into capillary segments ; Mount Silke, Schimper.—k very variable 

 species in the circumscription of its leaves and in the form of the lobes of the floating ones ; 

 like many other aquatic plants, widely dispersed over the globe. 



2. R. pinnatus, Foir. ; DC. Prod. i. 42. Stems from a tufted rootstock, 

 erect or ascending, unless in marshy ground or amongst tall grass, 1-2 ft. or 

 more in height, loosely or shortly pilose or glabrescent, with more or less ad- 

 pressed short hairs above and on the peduncles, pilose with short spreading 

 hairs below. Lowest divisions of the radical leaves 3-fid or 3-partite ; the 

 teeth and lobes somewhat acute, glabrescent or with adpressed hairs above, 

 usually more or less loosely pilose beneath. Uppermost leaves sessile, 3-fid 

 or deeply incised, rarely entire. Sepals spreading or somewhat retlexed. 

 Head of achenes globose or broadly ellipsoidal. Achenes compressed, bor- 

 dered, glabrous, sides with scattered"^ tubercles, sometimes very few or none, 

 the carpels being nearly smooth. The tubercled carpels appear to be charac- 



