Ceraiophyllum CERATOPHYLLACEyE 187 



Pericarp leathery or hardened, often with 3 or more spines. 

 Seed without endosperm ; embryo with oblong, equal cotyledons ; 

 plumule well developed with several leaves. 



A single genus with one, or at most two or three species, 

 found in fresh water almost all over the world. 



CERAIOPHYLLUM L. 



C. demepsum L. Sp. PL 992 (1753); Macf. Jam. ii. 33; 

 Griseh. Fl. Br. W. Ind. U ; K. Schum. in FL Bras. Hi. pL 3, 746, 

 t. 125 ; Urb. Symb. Ant. iv. 236. (Fig. 75.) 



MorassWeed. 



Shakspear ! Lagoon near Ferry, Macfadyen ; also McNab ! also 

 Purdie I March ! Ferry, Fawcett d Harris I swamps, St. Margaret's Bay ; 

 pools, Hope River Valley; Harris \ Fl. Jam. 5958, 9983. 



Family XXV. RANUNCULACE.^:. 



Herbs or shrubby climbers. Leaves radical and alternate or 

 opposite. -Flowers hermaphrodite or polyamo-dioecious. Sepals 

 generally 5 or 4, hypogynous, free, often petaloid, deciduous, 

 imbricate or valvate. Petals as many as the sepals, or some 

 or all wanting, imbricate. Stamens numerous, hypogynous, free. 

 Carpels (in West Indian species) numerous, with one ovule, 

 ripening into achenes. 



Species about 1,200, dispersed over the whole world, but rare 

 and generally confined to the mountains in the tropics. 



Herbs..; •. / '. 1. Ranuneuhis. 



Shrubby, climbing r.'. — 2. Clematis. 



• 1. RANUNCULUS L. 



Annual or perenHial herbs. Leaves lobed or compound. 

 Flowers solitary ol' cymose, yellow. Sepals 5, imbricate. Petals 

 usually 5, glandular near the base. Ovule ascending. Achenes 

 capitate, shortly beaked. 



Species about 250, dispersed all over the world, mostly in 

 temperate and frigid regions of the northern hemisphere, a few 

 in the mountains of "the tropics. 



Achenes not tubercled. 



Stems creeping , 1. .R. repens. 



Stems not creeping /... 2. B. recurvatus. 



Achenes tubercled : 3. B. parviflorus. 



§ 1 . Perennial, Achenes not tubercled. 



1. R. repens L. Sp. PI, 554- (1753); steni creeping; leaves 

 3-foliate.— Mao/, Jam. i. 3. (Fig. 76.) 



