UANUNCULACE.T:. ;j 



Annual or perennial herbaceous plants ; possessed of acrid 

 properties, so as to be rubef'acient when applied externally, and 

 in some degree poisonous when exhibited internally. Of the 

 140 species comprehended in the genus, the greater proportion 

 are natives of Northern latitudes, and very few are to be found 

 between the tropics. Name, from RANA a frog, from the plants 

 growing in moist situations, where frogs usually abound. 



1. Ranunculus repens. Creeping Crowfoot. 



Calyx, spreading, flower stalks furrowed, scyons 

 creeping, leaves with three petiolulate leaflets which 

 are 3-lobed, or 3-partite and cut Hooker. 



Eng. Sot. t. 516 Smith, Eng. Fl. III. 51 Hooker Fl. 

 Scot. I. 175. De Cand. Syst. I. 285. 



HAB. Common in the neighbourhood of St Catherine's Peak, 

 St Andrew's. 



FL. June August. 



This is evidently an introduced plant which has become na- 

 turalized from the garden of the late Mr Matthew Wallen at 

 Cold-spring, and is now very plentiful in the above locality. 

 According to the authorities quoted by De Candolle, it is to be 

 found in every part of Europe, in several districts of North 

 America, in Madeira, and we can now add Jamaica. 



2. Ranunculus parviflorus. Small Flowered Crow- 

 foot. 



Leaves hairy 3-or sub-5-lobed with the lobes in- 

 ciso-dentate, stem spreading decumbent hairy, pedun- 

 cles opposite the leaves, calyx as long as the petals, 

 pericarps granulato-tuberculose. 



Engl. Bot. t. 120. Engl. FL III. 53. Hooker, Brit. Fl. 

 267. De Cand. Syst. I. 300. 



HAB. Portland Gap. St Catherine's Peak. Pastures at 

 Salt-Hill. 



FL. April, May. 



The radical leaves are, as in the specific character : those of 

 the stem, and those opposite to the flowerstalks, are also 3 5 

 lobed ; but the lobes are sub-entire ; petioles of the radical 

 leaves striated, hairy, membranaceous and expanded at the base. 

 Peduncles compressed, striated, hairy, flowered. Sepals ob- 

 long, hairy, yellowish, with a green mid-nerve. Petals length 

 of the sepals, oblong, 1 or 2 usually wanting. Pericarps com- 

 pressed, nearly orbicular, beaked with the remains of the in- 

 curved style ; under the microscope pellucido-granulated. 



It is difficult to imagine how this species could have come to 

 establish itself in the above situations. It is a native of the 



