.^. 



®|c |rt lllnun 



OF 



NEA¥ ZEALAND FLOKA. 



Chapter I. 



Class I.— DICOTYLEDONS. 



Order I.— EANUNCULACE^E. (The Crowfoot Eamily.) 



Charactkr of the Order. — Herbs with alternate or 

 ractieal leaves (Clematis excepted). Flowers iisiiallv liermaph- 

 rodite. Sepals, 3-G, free, often petaloid, usually deeiduous. 

 Petals, 5-10 or none, sometimes spuried or deformed, often 

 with 11 pit or scale towards the base, deeiduous. iStamens 



hypogynous, usually Terv numerous; antliers adnale. Carpels 

 numerous, free on a torus which sometimes elongates. Fruit 

 of few, or many 1-seeded achenes, or many-seeded follicles ; 

 Seeds with fleshy albumen, and a minute embryo. — Handbook 

 of New Zealand Flora, p. 1. 



Description of the Order.- 



•;BOUNDING iu all temperate climates, rarer in tropical. Mauv European 

 and other genera have irregular flowers, and otherwise differ from the New 

 Zealand types ; such as the cultivated Aconite, Larkspur, Columbine, &c. 

 The juice of the Ranunculacece is watery, and very acrid. All the species are more or 

 less poisonous. The leaves are usually parted, and the petioles, or footstalks, generally 

 dilated at the base, so as to enfold the stem; this is, indeed, so frequently the case, 

 that Avlien a plant is found to have this peculiarity, combined with numerous stamens 

 grooving round, and from beneath a little heap of carpels in the centre of the flower, 

 the student in botany may be certain that the plant belongs to the Hanunculacece. 

 There are, however, many plants belonging to the family which have neither cut leaves 



