BUTTERCUP FAMILY, Ranunculaceae. 
BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae. 
The members of this large and handsome family vary so 
much in appearance that it is difficult for the amateur to 
realize that they are nearly related. In fact they have no 
very distinctive characteristics. They are all herbs, 
except Clematis, which is shrubby, and all have bitter 
juice, which is never milky or colored, numerous stamens 
and usually several pistils, which are superior and one- 
celled, bearing a single style, and all the parts of the flower 
are separate from each other and inserted on the receptacle. 
The flowers are often of eccentric forms, with spurs or 
hoods; sometimes they dispense with petals altogether 
and instead have colored sepals which resemble petals. 
The leaves are of all sorts and shapes, usually more or less 
lobed and cut, but have no stipules and often their bases 
clasp the stem. The fruit is an akene, pod, or berry. 
Many of our most beautiful and popular garden flowers 
are included in this family, which is large and distributed 
throughout the world, but not abundant in the tropics. 
There are numerous kinds of Ranunculus, mostly 
perennials, with fibrous roots, growing in temperate and 
cold regions. Ours have yellow or white flowers, with 
three to five sepals and from three to fifteen petals, each 
of the petals with a nectar-gland at its base; the numerous 
pistils developing into a roundish or oblong head of akenes. 
The leaves are variously cut and lobed, the stem leaves 
alternate. Some sorts grow in the water and some have 
creeping stems. Some kinds of Ranunculus are liable to 
be confused with some sorts of Cinquefoils, but the calyx ofa 
Buttercup has no bractlets, as has that of a Cinquefoil. The 
Latin name means “‘little frog,’’ as these plants like marshes. 
The commonest kind and attractive, 
Common Western often coloring the fields for miles with 
rag at bright gold, but the flowers are not so 
Rantinculus 
Califérnicus pretty as some common eastern kinds. 
Yellow The stems are branching and more or less 
Winter, spring hairy, nineinches to a foot and a half tall, 
_ Oreg., = with dark-green leaves, smooth, hairy or 
z velvety, and velvety, hairy buds. The 
flowers are about an inch across, with from nine to sixteen, 
bright-yellow, shiny petals and pale-green sepals, turned 
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