FLOWERING PLANTS. 17 
tapering upwards. Petals 2 or 3 times longer than the calyx. 
Stigma cylindrical. Achenes loosely packed in a globular head ; 
their inner edge nearly straight, their outer convex. 
Rather common in ditches and pools in England; but the only 
Scotch specimens I have seen are from Lochend, near Edinburgh. 
It is marked in Mr. Moore’s list of Irish plants. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer and Autumn. 
Stems branched, slender, and very easily broken. Leaves dark- 
green, 4 to 1 inch in diameter, sub-sessile, trifurcate, and then 
several times forked, all in one plane, which is often at right 
angles to the stem. Petals obovate, white, with a yellow base. 
Nectary short. Stamens 15 to 20, longer than the head of pistils. 
Style bent, about as long as the ovary. Stigma on the recurved 
end of style. Receptacle hispid ovoid-globose; the fruit loosely 
packed in a globular head. Achenes often hispid, with rather faint 
transverse, wrinkled ridges, ovoid, compressed, with the inner 
margin slightly convex, and terminated by the persistent style, or 
its base, outer margin semicircular, apex rather acute. 
The leaves of this plant are so unlike any of the other British 
species, that in a recent state it cannot be confounded with them. 
Professor Babington places it in a section with the receptacle ‘ not 
hispid;” but I have found it hairy in all the specimens I have 
examined. 
Rigid-leaved Water Crowfoot. 
French, generic name, Renoncule. German, Ranunkel, Hahnenfuss, or Krihenfuss. 
The generic name from rana,a frog, because many of the species inhabit damp, 
moist places frequented by these creatures. Some botanists rather attribute the origin 
of the name to the fact of the divided leaves bearing a resemblance to the foot of a 
frog. 
SPECIES II-RANUNCULUS FLUITANS. Lam. 
Pirate XVI. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et. Helv. Vol. TIT. Ran. Tab. II. Fig. 4577. 
Bab. Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. ii. Vol. XVI. p- 402; and Man. Brit. Bot. ed. v. p. 8, 
Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ et Helv. ed. ii. p. 13. Gr, & Godr. Fl, de Fr. Vol. I. p. 25. 
Boreau, F\. du Cent. de la Fr. ed. iii. Vol. IT. p. 13. 
R. aquatilis 6, Sm. Eng. Fl. Vol. III. p. 55. 
R. fluviatilis, “ Wigg,” Wall. Sched. Crit. p. 284. 
oo? 
Submerged leaves petiolate or sessile, narrowly wedge-shaped in 
outline, divided into long, comparatively rigid, sub-parallel segments, 
Floating leaves (rarely produced), consisting of 3 long-stalked por- 
tions, which are wedge-shaped, or obovate-truncate, usually with 
D 
