274 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



the flower appears to be quite naked, a fluffy ball of 

 delicate white stamens. The leaves are ternately 

 divided into a number of leaflets, which have rather 

 the appearance of those of the maiden-hair fern. The 

 stamens are numerous, the ovary consists of many 

 free carpels, each with one seed and becoming in 

 fruit an achene. 



* RANUNCULUS WALLICHIANUS, W. & A., arid R. 

 RENIFORMIS, Wall., are two Buttercups, common on 

 the hills. They have thick rootstocks ; radical and 

 alternate leaves, the former clasping the stem at the 

 base, with blades deeply cut into wedge-shaped seg- 

 ments and these again cut, the latter undivided and 

 coarsely toothed. The flowers are on long stalks. 

 Sepals generally five in number. Petals five, shining, 

 bright yellow, with at the base of each, a small pocket 

 covered by a flap in which honey is formed. Stamens 

 very numerous, arranged in a spiral, not in one circle. 

 Carpels also numerous, arranged in a spiral at the top 

 of the dome-shaped thalamus, and in fruit achenes. 



CHARACTERS OF THE RANUNCULACE^ 



These three genera, it will be at once seen, have in 

 common : the perennial rootstock and alternate and 

 more or less divided leaves ; the flowers single or on 

 long stalks (not in masses) ; the sepals free ; the petals 

 free (or it may be absent) ; the stamens and carpels 

 indefinite in number (generally very numerous) spirally 

 arranged and free; and the end of the pedicel (the 

 thalamus) on which the parts are placed, dome-shaped 

 (not flat nor hollow). These are the characters of 

 the RANUNCULACE^E. It is not a large family, and 



