30 RANUNCULACE.E. 



Etymology. An ancient Latin name, the diminutive of Rana, a frog, 

 also applied by Pliny to aquatic species of this genus, which inhabit similar 

 places. 



Properties. The fresh juice is my acrid and poisonous, so much so in 

 many species as to blister the skin or produce ulcers. But the acrid princi- 

 ple is so far dissipated in drying, that the Buttercups, which abound in every 

 old meadow, are apparently innocuous in the hay. 



Geographical Distribution. A genus of about 200 described species, 

 dispersed over almost every paft of the world ; but chiefly belonging to 

 temperate and frigid regions, and to the northern hemisphere. 



Division. The white-flowered aquatic species bear a nectariferous pit on 

 the yellowish base of the petal, in place of the adherent scale ; and the 

 achenia are wrinkled transversely ; these form the section Batrachium, 

 DC. The sections Ranunculastrum, Hecatonia, and Echinella, of De I mi- 

 ddle, which all have the squamula on the base of the petals, are distin- 

 guished by characters of less moment, and may rather be taken as subdivis- 

 ions of the higher group, Ranunculus proper. 



Note. The genus Hamadryas, which on p. 11 was referred to the Sub- 

 tribe Adonidese, on the authority of the character " ovulo unico pendulo " 

 by Endlicher, has an erect ovule, and must stand nest to Ranunculus ; as is 

 well shown by Dr. Hooker (Flora Antarctica, p. 227. t. 85). 



PLATE 9. Ranunculus fascicularis, Muhl. ; — natural size, with its 

 fasciculate thickened roots. (From a plant indigenous at Cam- 

 bridge : a common vernal species ) 



1. Sepal detached and moderately enlarged. 



2. Petal, equally enlarged ; inside view. 



3. Stamen enlarged ; inside view. 



4. Same, seen from the outside. 



5. A pistil detached and magnified. 



6. Same, with the ovary divided, showing the ovule. 



7. Ovule, more magnified. 



8. Vertical section through a head of pistils in fruit, enlarged. 



9. An aehenium, magnified. 



10. Vertical section of an aehenium and the inclosed seed, magnified, show- 

 ing the embryo. 



