FORMS AND ALLIES OF RANUNCULUS FLAMMULA LINN, 135 
large stony black seeds 4 in. thick, which are embedded in a black 
or blackish brown half-dry somewhat slimy mass, and their position 
in the fruit is shown on the exterior by hemispherical humps. The 
monkeys eat the fruit while still unripe, as well as the seeds, which 
are full of a white farinaceous albumen. 
Pungo Andongo. Not rare in damp rocky places, but rarely 
fruiting. In flower, fruit, and leaf in May, and flowering also in 
January, No. 6447. 
FORMS axnp ALLIES or RANUNCULUS FLAMMULA Lay. 
By Cuaarues Batey, F.L.S. 
(Tue form of this paper and the local allusions are explained 
by the fact that it is a newspaper report, revised for this Journal, 
‘of a recent address to botanical students at Manchester.— Ep. 
Journ. Bor.] 
Tue polymorphism of the common spearwort (Hanunculus 
Flammula I.) is much more strongly marked than that of the 
great spearwort (f. Lingua L.), or that of the creeping spearwort 
(R. reptans L.); it seems to link the two last-named species to each 
other, although its affinities are decidedly with R. reptans. The 
numerous bogs and mosses would indicate. R. Lingua is mainly 
confin he margins of the Cheshire meres, but it is an 
infrequent species. R. reptans does not occur in our district, its 
j e 
the principal directions of its variability. 
The ordinary form of our ditches is one in which the stems are 
at first decumbent, with numerous rootlets from the lower nodes, 
which occurs in masses, and proves itself to be an eminently soci 
plant by its siolghbourls habit of growth. The radical leaves have 
ovate or elliptical, and strikingly unlike the linear or lanceolate 
stalks, which are amplexicaul at their base; their blades are 
, 
t 
