48 THE EAKLY CBOWFOOT. 



Notice how the stamens stand directly on the torus, neither 

 adhering to any other member, nor co-hering among them- 

 selves. They are hypogynous (hypo, under, gyne, the pistil). 

 This character is of great significance.* (Fig. VIII, 9.) The 

 pistils are also numerous, twenty or more, generally some 

 multiple of 5. Their form and structure are remarkable 

 one-sided (5), consisting each of 

 an ovary tipped with a sessile 

 stigma, without a style. 



The Fruit. In a few days the 

 work of the yellow buttercup is 2 ' flower of R - 

 done. Bees and other insects have drained its nectaries and 

 scattered its pollen. The sepals, petals and stamens fade and 

 fall. These are the deciduous parts. But the pistils still 

 persist, attached to the torus, growing and forming a round- 

 ish head (4) of as many little fruits (carpels) as there were 

 pistils. Let us dissect one of these carpels (6). It holds 

 just one seed in one cell. It is an achenium a simple fruit 

 formed of one carpel (not of three, as in Erythronium). In 

 the figure is represented a section of the seed, showing a 

 small embryo with two cotyledons, imbedded in albumen. 

 Here is work for the microscope. 



The Name. There are many kinds of Buttercup- 

 Crowfoots. Some of them delight in ponds and sluggish 

 streams, with the frogs for their companions. For this rea- 

 son, Linnaeus named them all Ranunculus (a little frog). 

 Ranunculus is therefore the name of a group of similar 

 forms, = a Genus, including all sorts and kinds of Butter- 

 cup-Crowfoots. The specific form here figured and de- 

 scribed, known at sight by its early date,f showy flowers, 



* On account of their hypogynous stamens, and the entire freedom or distinctness 

 of all their floral organs, botanists have assigned the Buttercups and their order to 

 the highest rank in the Vegetable Kingdom. 



t There is no danger of confounding this species with that other one which also 



