RANUNCULACE-E. 25 



Plate 7. 

 TRAUTVETTERIA, Fisch. <$• Mey. 



Calyx 3 — 5-sepalus, aestivatione imbricatus, sepalis conca- 

 vis caducissimis. Petala nulla. Achenia plurima, utriciilata, 

 membranacea, dolabriformi-quadrangulata. Semen e basi 

 adscendenti-erectum ! Embryo majuscula ! — Folia palma- 

 tifida. Involucrum nullum. 



Trautvetteria, Fischer & Meyer, Ind. Sem. Petrop. 1835. p. 22. 



Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Am. 1. p. 37. Endl. Gen. 4798. 

 Hydrastis, Lam. 111. t. 500; non Linn. 

 CiMiciFcca: Sp., Miclix. Fl. 1. p. 316. 



Calyx of 3 to 5 orbicular and strongly concave sepals, 

 imbricated in aestivation (when four in number, as is most 

 common, two are exterior and two interior in the bud, but 

 sometimes two are overlapped on one edge by the outer 

 one, and the fourth is interior), petaloid (greenish-white), 

 very caducous. Petals none. Stamens indefinite, hypogy- 

 nous, in several series, much longer than the pistils, all per- 

 fect, white : filaments thickened upward or clavate : an- 

 thers short, pointless ; the elliptical cells separate, some- 

 what extrorsely adnate, opening longitudinally. Pistils 

 indefinite (20 or more), capitate on the short receptacle : 

 ovary compressed, gibbous, one-celled, one-ovuled : stigma 

 recurved, unilateral. Ovule erect, ascending from the base 

 of the cell, anatropous ; the strong raphe ventral. 



Achenia capitate, numerous, sessile, broadly ovate, gib- 

 bous, beaked by the recurved-uncinate persistent stigma or 

 short style, utricular and membranaceous, entirely smooth 

 and even, except the four prominent narrow ribs, which are 

 one dorsal, the other ventral, bordering the acute angles, and 

 the two others lateral, forming obtuse angles, the transverse 

 section exactly rhombic : the ripe fruit inclines to open at 



one of the sutures. Seed very much smaller than the cell, 

 3 



