136 FORMS AND ALLIES OF RANUNCULUS FLAMMULA LINN. 
sessile stem-leaves. Oftener than not their margin is denticulate, 
and when the denticulation is pronounced the plant is the variety 
serratus 
There is a form of R. Flammula where all, or nearly all, the 
leaves are ovate in shape, as figured in Dr. Richard Deakin’s 
‘Florigraphia Britannica,’ vol. il. fig. 900, p. 789; it would appear — 
in Brita; 
John Hardy. From the facies of the plant it would a to 
have been a wholly aquatic tio io that the ahiiset poked ae 
were floating leaves. It a s to the var. ovatus of Persoon, 
‘* fol. omnibus ovatis as petiolate Poir. Circa Caen.” (Synopsis 
Plantarum ; pars secunda, 0 
en the stems of R. ‘Mawinula are weak and unable to flak 
themselves in an erect condition, the species assumes two forms, 
according to its habitat. If the plant occurs in water, the stems 
and leaves float upon the surface, and only the extremities of the 
flowering branches rise above the water; this form gee long 
and slender stems, with long siotleld from all the lower nodes. I 
collected it, in October last, in a shallow pool in the iigidicashent 
of the Gurnard’s s Head, in the south of Cornwall; it appears to 
answer to Pestncs n’s var. natans, ‘‘ fol. inferiorib. ovatis integris 
superiorib. linearibus. In aquis prope Montmorency et in Barbaria 
ae ¢c., p. 102). The radical ; aa of this form constitute a striking 
€; sometimes their base is cordate, and, in common wit 
— forms of Flammuila, show a close affinity to the root-leaves of 
Rope 0 
years ago; and M. Fr. Crépin, the Belgian botanist, in 1865, directed 
the sitintis of students to the study ‘of the differences betwee en the 
spring and summer leaves of this and other aquatic plan 
On the other hand, when a weak-stemmed plant of Fuant 
it constitutes Dr. Boswell’s variety pseudo-reptans, and it is the 
extreme conditions of this form which link /ammula so closely to 
reptans. Lhe form nearest to suberectus has sesignt Auber notes 
inte eaves except th e first, are "asked, and  alucael every node 
pisideins ces roots, just as in reptans, so that the only distinguishing 
characters from the latter are cniaiales such as its larger 
flowers, and thicker stems and roots. This form of pseudo-reptans 
has a central rootstock, from which radiate a large number of 
* [There is a remarkable specimen in the British Museum Herbasiam, seein 
probably belongs to this form, but it is a robust, apparently erect, plant; 
tihsead weet: (which is not a radical one) is 2? in. long by 2 in. ‘cal 
ourN. Bor.} 
