34 



XAITUAL niSTOBY OF PLANTS. 



suniiounts tlio carpels, also vary much.' The Ranunculi are herbs 



with alternate leaves which may 

 be simple or compound, com- 

 plete or incomplete ; ■ their 

 flowers are solitary or in ter- 

 minal cymes.^ 



There are Ranunculi in which 

 the petals disappear almost en- 

 tirely, being only represented 

 by minute scales, glandular at 

 the base, identical with the 

 organs which in other families 

 we have above termed nec- 

 taries.'* In some, indeed, the 



petals disappear entirely, and these have been erected into a quite 



Ranunculus arvensis. 



Fig. 63. Fig. 64. 



Complete fi'uit. Carpel opened. 



with pricldes or projecting tubercles. If we 

 examine tlie origin of these carpels in Ranunculus 

 arvensis, trilohtis, Fkilonotis, &c., we see that 

 they depend only on the outer layers of the 

 pericarp, that they do not develope till late, 

 that they differ in number and size in different 

 carpels of the same species, and that hence 

 their importance can only be slight. Caji- 

 BASSEDES has already remarked (Flor. Balear., 

 32) that the number of tubercles did not give 

 an absolute distinction between Ranunculus 

 Philonotis and trilohus. 



' For this reason Bextham & Hooker 

 have not admitted the genera XipJiocoma 

 and Gampsoceras Stev. (Bull. Mosc, 1852, 

 t. 7), or Cyprianthus Spacu, {Suit, a Buff., 

 vii. 220), established for R. Orientalis L. R. 

 Cornutus is remarkable for the small number 

 of carpels J some Howers have only three or 

 four. 



- I n i?. Lingua (fig. 59), Flammula, gramineus, 

 alismoides, <.tc., we have simple leaves dilated at 

 the base into an imperfect sheath, the blade 

 entire or nearly so, and narrow and elongated, 

 reciilling that of a Monocotyledon. In our com- 

 monest Ranunculi the leaves have a distinct blade 

 more or less lobed, or even divided into distinct 

 leatlets. R. scelerulus offers every transition 

 between simple, even entire, leaves, and those 

 most dissected. R. Thora has on its peduncle 

 two special leaves diifering from one another and 

 from the caulinc leaves. Finally, in the section 

 Balrar/iiuin there have always been remarked 

 leaves provided witli basilar membranous stipuli- 

 form expansions, varying much according as thev 

 are aerial or entirely submerged, when they are 



reduced to capillary ramified thongs. (See Gken. 

 & GoDK., Flor. Fr., i. 18, t. A.) 



^ Some Rannncvli have solitary terminal 

 flowers. In others the leaves or bracts below 

 the flower bear in their axils younger flowers, 

 the number of these floral generations varying 

 with the species. In R. Thora, which has often 

 two flowers, these form a uniparous cyme, the 

 lateral flower being the younger. In our com- 

 monest terrestrial Ranunculi the cymes thus 

 formed are always uniparous and many flowered. 

 So, too, because the flower always terminates 

 the axis, we get leaf-opposed flowers in certain 

 species, as in R. Flammula (see, also, on this 

 subject GuiLLAED, Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr., iv. 32, 

 36, 121). 



* The petals become very small and even dis- 

 appear in certain flowers of some of our common 

 Ranunculi, as R. Auricomus (Rochebrtjne, Bull. 

 Soc. Bot. Fr., ix. 280). In R. apiifoUus PoiE., 

 which has to A. St. Hilaiee become the type 

 of a separate genus, under the name of ApJiano- 

 stemma (Flor. Bras. Merid., i. 12. — Ekdl., 

 Oen., n. 4781), the sepals are petaloid, but on 

 the other hand the petals are quite small and 

 reduced to little rods, each with a glandular head 

 cup-shaped at the summit. The remaining cha- 

 racters are those of other Ranunculi. The in- 

 definite stamens have basifixed extrorse anthers, 

 and each of the luimerous carpels contains an 

 ascending ovule with the micropyle downwards 

 and inwards. Tiie bracts near the flowers are 

 provided at the base with latei'al membranous 

 stipuliform expansions. Following Bentham & 

 Hookek {Gen., 6), we only make Aphanostemma 

 a section of the genus Ranunculus. 



