CROWFOOT FAMILY. Ranitnculaceas. 



over the stigma so small that an entering insect must 

 touch the stigma. On the following day the flower ex- 

 pands fully and the anthers beneath the stigma unfold, 

 spread outward, and expose their pollen. Cross-fertiliza- 

 tion is thus insured, and is generally effected by means of 

 the bees of the genus Halictus, and (so says Prof. Robert- 

 son) the beetle named Donaciapiscatrix. A very common 

 and familiar plant in stagnant water, with stouter stem 

 and coarser leaves than those of the preceding species. 

 N. rubrodisca is a slenderer form the smaller flower of 

 which has a crimson stigma. Northern Vt. to Mich, 

 and Penn. 



This is a very slender species, with flow- 

 mall Yellow erg scarce iy i inch wide. Sepals only 

 Nytfipha? three. The stigma disc, dark red. In 

 microphytta ponds and sluggish streams, Me. to south. 

 Golden yellow ern N. Y., Penn., and west to Minn. 

 June- 

 September 



CROWFOOT FAMILY. Ranunculacece. 



A large family of perennial or annual herbs, with gen- 

 erally regular but sometimes irregular flowers ; with 

 stamens and pistil, or with staminate and pistillate flow- 

 ers on different plants ; 3-15 petals, or none at all ; in the 

 last case the sepals petallike and colored. Generally fer- 

 tilized by the smaller bees, butterflies, and the beelike 

 flies. 



A most beautiful trailing vine commonly 



Virgin's found draped over the bushes in copses 



Bower 



Clematis an( ^ ^7 nioist roadsides. The leaves dark 



Virginiana green, veiny, with three coarsely toothed 

 Greenish leaflets ; the flat clusters of small flowers 



White with four greenish white sepals and no 



petals, polygamously staminate and pistil- 

 late on different plants ; cross-fertilized by bees, the bee- 

 like flies (Bombylius), and the beautiful and brilliantly 

 colored flies of the tribe Syrphidce. In October the 

 flowers are succeeded by the gray plumy clusters of the 

 withered styles (still adherent to the seed-vessels), which 

 128 



