Ranunculus.] hanunculace^. 6 



Mv. Henry Turner, of the Botanic Garden, Bury St. Edmund's, has remarked 

 a high degree of fragrance in the flowers of the Wood Anemone, and my friend 

 [the late] E. J. Vernon, Esq., has proved to me that the blossoms emit a delicate 

 almond scent, as in some kinds of Clematis. 



IV. Adonis, Linn. Pheasant's-eye. 



Sepals 5. PetaU 5 — ^15 without a nectary. Carpels without 

 tails, hooked or acuminate. The Flos Adonis or Adonidis of the 

 old herbalists, from an idea of its being the flower fabled to have 

 sprung from the blood of Adonis. 



A small genus, the red or scarlet-flowered species of which are annual, the yel- 

 low perennial ; the former inhabiting chiefly liie cornfields of southern and cen- 

 tral Europe and North of Africa, the latter the hilly and colder tracts of Europe 

 and Asia. Though commonly placed in this tribe, Adonis is decidedly move 

 closely allied to Ranunculus than to Anemone, diff'ering from the former mainly 

 in the want of nectaries on the petals, and from the latter by the absence of an 

 involucre. 



1. A. autumnalis, L. Corn Pheasant's-eye. " Petals concave 

 connivent scarcely longer than the glabrous calyx, achenes reti- 

 culated collected into an ovate head, stem branched."— iJr. Fl. p. 

 6. E. B. t. 308. 



In cornfields, but rarely. Fl. May — October. 0. 



E. Med. — In cornfields above Steephill towards St. L;iwrence, Dr. Martin, 

 where I gathered very fine and abundant specimens June lllh, 1839. I have 

 since found it at Bonchuvch. 



W. Med. — Cornfields on the late enclosures of Parkhurst forest at Hill Cross 

 farm. Not uncommon in various parts of the island, George Kirkpalrick, Esq. 



Root tapering, whitish. Stem 6 — 12 inches high, round, furrowed, simple, or 

 in the larger plants branched, downy at the base and springing of the petioles, 

 otherwise glabrous. Leaves alternate, the lower ones on hairy footstalks, upper 

 ones sessile, tripinnatifid, the segments linear, acute, smooth. Flowers mostly 

 solitary, terminal, about the size of a sixpence, deep rich scarlet, very fugacious. 

 Petals obovate, deciduous, minutely notched, with dark purple claws. Sepals 5, 

 ovate, purplish, scarcely shorter than the petals. Anthers in 2 rows, broad and 

 flat, of two brownish lobes bursting along their outer edges. Ovaria greenish. 

 Stigmas violet. Carpels collected into an ovate head, 4-sided, ovate, tapering, 

 indehiscent, single-seeded. 



The flowers when the plant has been for some time dried for the herbarium 

 lose their fine scarlet coloui-, becoming white and diaphanous like goldbeater's 

 skin. 



Tribe III. Banunculecs. 



^Estivation imbricate. Perianth double. Petals with a nec- 

 tariferous hollow or pore at their base. Carpels numerous, 

 1-seeded, indehiscent or partially bursting, without tails, often 

 tuberculate, mucronate or muricate. Seed erect, or in Myosurus 

 pendulous and inverted. 



V. Eanunculus, Linn. Crowfoot. 



Calyx of 5 (rarely 3) sepals. Petals 5, seldom 10, 13 or more, 

 occasionally imperfect or obsolete, the pore or nectary at their 

 base within naked or covered with a scale. Stamens sometimes 



