FLORA OF TASMANIA 
Nat. Ord. I. RANUNCULACE/E.* 
This Natural Order, though placed by De Candolle at the head of the series, is, as is well known, by no 
means entitled, from any real perfection of structure, to so high a position,— a subject to which 1 shall return 
in an Introductory Essay to the classification of Australian plants, which will be appended to this Work. 
In distribution it is almost cosmopolitan, being very rare, or absent only in humid tropical jungles, abound- 
ing in all temperate regions, wet and dry, advancing to the utmost limits of phicnogamous vegetation 
towards either pole, and ascending to 18,000 feet elevation in the Himalaya. Some species, as the Tas- 
manian R. aquatilis, are found in both hemispheres, and in many widely sundered localities. Very few of 
the many genera it contains are peculiar to the southern hemisphere ; nor are there any very remarkable 
southern forms, except the Tasmanian Anemone, and the curious Euegian species of Hamadryas and Caltha. 
The latter genus is anomalous, in being absent from Tasmania, and found both in New Zealand, Fuegia, 
and perhaps in South-eastern Australia ; it may yet occur in the mountains. On the whole, Tasmania is 
remarkable for the few forms of Ranmculacea it presents. About twenty-six Australian species are known, 
the Tasmanian ones. 
Ranunculacea are singularly protean in habit and botanical characters, and this in every sense, for 
there are not only many modifications of structure by which the groups, genera, and species are limited, 
but the individual species are extremely variable. Even the three Tasmanian genera of the Order prove 
this including, as they do, shrubs and herbs, annual and perennial, opposite and alternate leaved plants, 
with simple and compound leaves, single and double perianths, unisexual and bisexual flowers, valvate and 
imbricate estivation, petals with and without scales at their bases, and ovaries with erect or pendulous ovules. 
On the other hand, several of the Tasmanian species of Clematis and of Ranunculus seem to be blended by 
varieties with one another, and with the species of New Zealand, Euegia, and even Europe; for though R. 
lappacem and sessilifolius are very distinct-looking plants from the ordinary English forms of R. acris and 
R. parviflorus respectively, it appears to me possible that they will one day be united by intermediate 
forms found at the Cape of Good Hope, India, South America, and other intermediate countries. It is 
however in the European genera of the Order that the greatest deviations from a common type of structure 
in Ranunculacea occur; and these are so many and great as almost to preclude the possibility of defining 
* A synopsis of the Australian Natural Orders will be appended to this Work. 
