Ranunculus.] ranunculace^. 7 



Dothin's farm to Limekiln Cliff; also in a pool at the east end of the driftway in 

 great abundance, Miss G. E. Kilderbee. Apparently frequent in plashes and 

 pools on the green (?) sand of the south-western part of the island, as at Hoxall, 

 Brook green, Chilton green, &c. 



** Carpels not transversely wrinkled. Nectary with a small scale. Flowers 



yellow. 



I Leaves undivided. 



3. R. Lingua, L. Great Spear-wort. " Leaves lanceolate sub- 

 serrated sessile semi-ainplexicaul, stem erect glabrous, achenes 

 minutely pitted mth a broad ensiform beak." — Br. Fl. p. 9. E. 

 B. t. 100. 



In and about shallow pools, ditches and marshy places, but rarely. Fl. July, 

 Ausrust. If. 



E. Med. — In the grounds at rernhill, in a ditch or slreato. Miss Sophia Sanders. 



W. ilfed.— Tolerably frequent in several parls of the marsh at Easton. 



Resembles the next species, but is much larger, with far more conspicuous 

 ■ flowers. Root a dense mass of matted fibres, and creeping with long, white, 

 jointed runners. Stem erect, 2 — 3 feet high, branching above, round, hollow, 

 leafy, and rooting from the short, bright-red joints of its submerged base. Leaves 

 linear-lanceolate, erect, clasping the stem, thick, smooth or somelimes slightly 

 hairy beneath, their edges with distant very shallow serratures. Peduncles single - 

 flowered, clothed with appressed hairs. Floivers an inch or more across, hand- 

 some, bright yellow. Sepals ovate, concave, ribbed and hairy. Petals broad, 

 rounded, quite entire, varnished, with a wide fleshy scale just above the very 

 short claw, forming a sac or pouch, partly filled with a nectiireous fluid. Sta- 

 mens very numerous ; anthers striated, bursting at the back. Germens numerous, 

 sessile ; receptacle with a lew stout bristles, not always present. Carpels collected 

 into small globular heads, ovate, punctato-striate, much compressed, suddenly 

 tapered into a short, thick, sliglitly curved beak. 



The earlier, primordial, submerged leaves are very large, ovate-oblong, obtuse, 

 cordate at the base, slightly uudulate-creuate along their margins, more or less 

 beset and most so beneath with short rigid pubescence, or nearly glabrous, on very 

 long, semiterete, somewhat hairy, sheathing petioles, obscurely and reticulately 

 veined, remaining green through the winter. 



The petals of R. Lingua are subject to a species of distortion or imperfection 

 of development, shown in deep marginal notches and other irregularities, obvious 

 not only in the freshly expanded blossoms, but even in the buds themselves. 



4. R. Flammula, L. Lesser Spear-wort. " Leaves linear-lanceo- 

 late nearly entire petiolate, the lower ones ovato-lanceolate, stem 

 decumbent at the base and rooting, achenes minutely pitted or 

 smooth with a short or sometimes subulate point." — Br. Fl. p. 9. 

 E. B. t. 387. 



Common everywhere in wet marshy situations and in damp pastures. Fl. 

 July — September. If.. 



5. R. Ficaria, L. Pilewort. Lesser Celandine. " Leaves cor- 

 date petiolate angular or crenate, sepals 3, petals 9, achenes 

 smooth blunt."— ^r. Fl. p. 9. E. B. t. 584. Ficaria ranuncu- 

 loides, DC. 



In woods, meadows and pastures, on hedge-banks and in wet places, abun- 

 dantly. Fl. March— May. -If. 



A perfectly smooth and somewhat succulent herb, whose bright yellow flowers 

 are amongst the earliest heralds of returning spring. Root a bundle of whitish 



