BANUNCULACE/E. 



Myosurus minimus. 

 Fig. 74. Fia. 75. 



Carpel. Longitudinal 

 section. 



dehiscing longitudinally by two nearly lateral clefts. Tlie carpels, 

 numerous and independent, have each a unilocular ovary tapering 

 above into a little horn, covered at the tip 

 with stigmatic papillae. In the inner angle of 

 the ovary is a solitary pendulous ovule, whose 

 micropyle looks inwards and upwards (figs. 74, 

 75). During anthesis and after fecundation 

 the receptacle continues to grow in length and 

 thickness, and finally remains covered with 

 numerous achenes, each containing a pendulous 

 seed. M. miuimiis L., a very common plant 

 in our country, is a small herbaceous annual, 

 bearing a certain number of alternate simple leaves on a short stem' 

 ending in a floral peduncle. Later other flowers are developed 

 below the terminal one in the axils of the upper leaves. Another 

 species is distinguished from that of our country by the absence 

 or the slight development of the corolla." This is not constant, 

 and is of no more importance here than in Banunculus. We 

 may therefore define the genus Mi/osurus as Banunculus with an elon- 

 gated receptacle and descending ovules. They are small 

 annual plants, of which only two species exist; one 

 a native of Western America and New Zealand ; the 

 other spread over the cold and temperate regions of 

 nearly the whole world. ^ 



The Anemones,"^ too, are also plants closely related in 

 their floral organization to the RanuncuU, from which we 

 may say that they difl*er essentially in two characters only; 

 their perianth, instead of consisting of both calyx and 

 corolla, is a petaloid calyx ; and (the more important one) 

 the adult carpels contain a single suspended ovule, with Anemone 

 the micropyle turned upwards and inwards. But above ''^^^^"^^q • 

 it we observe (fig. 76) four rudimentary ovules in two Carpei opened. 



1 Cassini {Opusc. 'phytoL, ii. 390) described 

 the caudex of Myosurus, an organ which ]VI. 

 Clos {Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 3, xiii. 10) refers to 

 the collar. 



- M. apetalus C. Gat, Fl. Chil., i. 31, t. 1, 

 fig. 1. The absence of petals is not constant in 

 this species. 



3 GuEN. & GoDE., Fl. Fr., i. 17.— Reiciib., 

 7co«.,iii. 1. — A.Gbay, //Z., Gen., i. 8. — Benth., 



Fl. Austral., i. 8.— J. HoOK., Fl. Ant., i. t. 1, 2 ; 

 N. Zeal., 8; Tasm., 5. — Weddell, Chlor.And., 

 ii. 306. — Walp., Ann., i. 7. 



•« Anemone Hall., Uelcet., ii. 60.— T., Tnstit., 

 275 (part.).— Juss., Gen., 232.— DC, Prodr., i. 

 16.— Spacu, Suit, a Buff., vii. 242.— Endl., 

 Gen., n. 4773. — Pater, Organoq., 254. — B. H., 

 Gen., 4, n. 4. — Oriha Adans., Fam. PL, ii. 45U. 



