134 RANUNCULACBAE 



*;s t,eaf-blades pinnately or ternately compound or decompound. 

 Petals without spurs or wanting-. 

 Fruit dry follicles. 

 Shrubs. 6. Xanthorrhiza. 



Herbs. 

 Low herbs, with solitary or few loosely panicled flowers. 



7. COPTIS. 



Tall herbs, with numerous flowers in strict, simple or branched 

 racemes. 8. Cimicifuga. 



Fruit berry-like follicles. 9. Actaea. 



Petals prolonged backward into hollow spurs. 10. Aquilegia. 



b. Flowers irregular. 

 Posterior sepal prolonged into a spur. 11. Delphinium. 



Posterior sepal more or less helmet-like. 12. Aconithm. 



B. Fruit an achene : carpels with a single ovule each. 



Flowers, or their pedicels or peduncles, subtended by involucres. 

 Involucre close under the calyx ; bracts entire. 13. Hepatica. 



Involucre remote from the calyx ; bracts toothed, divided or compound. 

 Styles subulate : leaf -segments sessile. 14. Anemone. 



Styles wanting : leaflets stalked. 15. Syndesmon. 



Flowers not subtended by involucres. 

 Leaves opposite ; sepals petal-like. 

 Petals wanting. 16. Clematis. 



Petals present, smaller than the sepals. 17. Atragene. 



Leaves alternate, sometimes all basal. 

 Leaf-blades entire, toothed, palmately lobed or dissected. 

 Petals wanting. 18. Trautvetteria. 



Petals present. 

 Achenes transversely wrinkled : petals white. 



19. Batrachium. 

 Achenes not transversely wrinkled : petals yellow, at least with- 

 out. 

 Achenes longitudinally ribbed. 20. Halerpestes. 



Achenes smooth, papillose or spiny. 

 Achenes truncate at the apex : sepals mostly 3. 



21. FiCARIA. 



Achenes beaked or beakless, but not truncate : sepals mostly 5. 



22. Ranunculus. 

 Leaf-blades ternately decompound. 23. Thalictrum. 



1. HYDRASTIS Ellis. 

 1. Hydrastis Canadensis L. Goi<den SEAi,. Orange-ROOT. (Man. 

 p. 412; I. F./. 1544) In woods, Ont. to N. Y., Minn., Ga. and Mo.— 

 Pennsylvania : Bucks ; Phii<adelphia ; Dei,aware ; Chester ; Lan- 

 caster ; Frankwn ; Huntingdon ; Ai<i,egheny. 



2. CALTHA L. 



Calyx mostly over 2.5 cm. broad : leaf-blades cordate, the sinus usually narrow. 



1. C, palustris. 

 Calyx mostly less than 2.5 cm. broad : leaf-blades flabelliform, the sinus broad. 



2. C. flabellifolia. 



