38 RANUNCULACEvE. 



Acaulescent, low and slender, smooth and shining herbs ; 

 with trifoliolate or ternately-decompound radical leaves, on 

 slender petioles, and a 1 - 4-flowered naked (minutely 1 - 2- 

 bracteate) scape, rising in early spring from a kind of scaly 

 bud, borne at the extremity of a long and filiform, extensive- 

 ly creeping, orange-colored, fibrillose rhizoma. Leaves per- 

 sistent through the winter : leaflets incised and toothed. 



Etymology. From Kojrra, to cut, alluding: to the divided leaves. 

 Properties. The yellow rootstocks and routs are intensely bitter : the in- 

 fusion is used as a tonic, and as a topical application to aphthous ulcerations. 

 Geographical Distribution. Natives of the colder northern temperate 

 zone, in damp shady woods and bogs. One species extends round the world ; 

 the others are Northwest American and Asiatic. 



Division, &c. In a specimen of Chrysocoptis occidentalis, Nutt., from 

 Geyer's Oregon collectfon, the petals are constructed just as in C. aspleni- 

 folia ; that is, the lamina is glandular-thickened and more or less cucullate 

 next the apex of the claw, and then continued upwards into a very long, 

 ligulate-filiform tail ; — thus leaving no real distinction between Chrysocoptis 

 and the section Pterophyllum. Furthermore, the two Japanese species re- 

 ceutly described by Zuccarini resemble the latter, except that their petals are 

 not thus prolonged. It appears, therefore, that only two subgenera can 

 now be characterized, viz. 



§ 1. Chrysa.. (Chryza, Raf.) — Sepals oval. Petals very small, glandu- 

 lajform, obconical-dilated and cucullate at the apex, not appendieulate. 

 — Scape 1-flowered. Leaves simply trifoliolate. (C. tnfolia.) 

 ^2. Chrysocoptis. (Chrysocoptis & Pterophyllum, Nutt.) — Sepals 

 linear or narrowly ligulate. Petals with an involute-cucullate lamina, 

 either elliptical and inappendiculate, or produced into a long filiform 

 appendage. — Scape 2 -4-flowered. Leaves 1 - 2-ternately compound. 



PLATE 13. Coptis trifolia, Salisb. ; — flowering plant, natural size. 



1. Flower, enlarged. 



2, 3. Magnified petals ; the former an inside, the other an outside view. 



4. A stamen, magnified, 



5. Pistils and receptacle, magnified. 



6. One of the pistils, detached. 



7. Transverse section, and 8, vertical section, of the same. 

 9. Fruit (shorter-stalked than usual), of the natural size. 



10. A seed, magnified. 



11. Vertical section of the same, showing the embryo. 



