Distribution of Ihe Order Rananculace(E. 15 



its slender rliizoma, enjoyiBg its soft bed and loving to associate 

 ■with tlie Enbus Arcticns, whose habits it seems to imitate. 

 Estranged fi'om its relations, it chooses friends of congenial tastes- 

 According to Ton-ey^ it is found throughout Siberia, and possibly 

 may have advanced like the mongrel, from west to east. I have 

 had the plant fi'om McKenzie River^ and it has location in various 

 parts of the Hudson's Bay territories, decreasing as it approaches 

 Norway house or the north end of Lake Winipeg. 



By the illustrious Linnaeus and earlier systematists, the Hepa- 

 iica Triloba, or Liverwort, was classed wrth the Anemones, to 

 some of which it bears a strong- aiEnity. As far as I have learnt^ 

 it is not to be had in the Hudson^s Bay Territories, out of the 

 ranges of the Rocky Mountains, In the vallies of these, it was 

 found by Drummond, that unfortunate w^andering collector, and 

 as far north as latitude 65*^. Here an interesting enquiry forces 

 itself upon us. If this plant really do not exist in the great ex- 

 tent of country lying between Western Canada and the Rocky 

 Mountains, how has it taken the mighty leap ? Can it have made 

 a circuit by the waters of the Missouri ? Nature, we know, is not 

 discrepant with herself. Will any theory of Appetencies or 

 Okenian system of development account for these huge strides 

 of vegetable species over numerous parallels of longitude ? Is it 

 not much easier and more rational at once to suppose, that there 

 is an Almighty Creator and wise Distributor, exercising his un- 

 fettered power and will, in all things pertaining to man's terrestrial 

 abode ? 



Coming now to the grand denominator, if not type, of the 

 order, the genus Ranunculus, we have a mass of plants w^hose 

 occurrence and distribution are so general and varied, that it would 

 defy the efforts of the most accurate and extended observation 

 to particularize or define them. Each species has more or less 

 its own lines of extension and march and its own choice of favor- 

 ite localities, so that the limits of range and abundance or scar- 

 city in growth, cannot be easily or shortly specified. Such minute 

 detail also would in a paper like this be tiresome and devoid of 

 interest. Yet, something must be said on the subject.^ — The B. 

 Cymhularium and R. Beptans, with undivided leaves, and the R. 

 Affinis. R. Ovalis, R. Ahortivus and R. Sceleratus, with foliage 

 more or less cut and lobed, are the common species about Lake 

 Winipeg, and probably throughout the Hudson's Bay country. 

 The B. AquatiliSy or River Crowfoot, so remarkable for its nu- 



