Ranunculus, | I, RANUNCULACEA. 7 
Annual. Carpels marked with a few tubercles 
within themargin. d , ‘ . 
Carpels covered with tubercles or prickles. Annuals. 
Leaves hairy, segments broad. Carpels tuberculate. 
Stems weak ‘ ? ‘ é 3 , 3 . 14. B. parviflorus. 
Leaves glabrous, segments narrow. Carpels very 
prickly. Plant erect : : ‘ . ° . 15, B. arvensis, 
. 13. BR. hirsutus. 
The showy double Ranunculus of our gardens belongs to a Levant species 
(2. asiaticus). Double-flowered varieties of several others, especially of 
our common yellow Buttercups, and of the white-flowered Continental 2. 
aconitifolius, are known as Bachelor’s Buttons. 
1, R. aquatilis, Linn. (fig.9). Water R.—A most variable species, but 
easily known by its stem either floating in water, or creeping along 
mud, by its white flowers, and very small ovoid carpels marked with trans- 
verse wrinkles. It is glabrous in all its parts excepting sometimes the 
carpels and their receptacle. The lower leaves and sometimes all, remaining 
under water, are divided into numerous very fine linear segments, whilst 
those which spread on the surface are rounded and more or less cut into 
3 or 6 wedge-shaped, obovate, or rounded lobes. Flower-stalks axillary 
and 1-flowered. Petals 5 or sometimes more, without any scale over the 
spot at their base. 
In ponds, streams, and fresh and brackish ditches throughout Europe, 
temperate Asia, America, and Australia. Abundant in Britain. 7. the 
whole season. Many of the forms it assumes are striking, and have been 
distinguished as species, but the characters, although often to a certain 
degree permanent, appear at other times so inconsistent, and even to depend 
so much on the situation the plant grows in, that we can only consider 
them as varieties. Twelve of them are admitted by Babington as species, 
_ of which the following are the most prominent. 
a. fluitans (R. fluitans, Lam.). All the leaves submerged and finely cut, 
the segments long and parallel. Flowers large, on long stalks.—Chiefly in 
running streams. 
b. circinatus (R. circinatus, Sibth.). All the leaves submerged and finely 
cut, but with shorter segments spreading in a perfect circle. Flowers 
large.—Chiefly in deep still waters. 
_¢. vulgaris. Lower leaves submerged and finely cut; upper leaves 
- floating, rounded and broadly lobed. Flowers very variable in size.—The 
commonest state of the plant, passing into all the other varieties. 
2. R. hederaceus, Linn. (fig. 10). Jvy R.—Very closely allied to R. 
aquatilis, and probably, as given in the first edition of this “* Handbook,” a 
variety of that species; but as in our own country, at least, it is very 
constant, I here admit it in deference to the opinion of others, It never 
appears to produce the finely-cut leaves of R. aquatilis, but, creeping on 
mud or floating in shallow water, it roots at every joint, bearing angular 
and broadly-lobed leaves like the upper ones of &. aquatilis ; the flowers are 
usually very small, the petals scarcely exceeding the sepals, and the carpels 
and receptacles are quite glabrous, 
Chiefly in wet ditches in western and northern Europe, common in 
Britain. &. conosus is a floating variety with much larger flowers, rare in 
Britain, but more common in western Europe, where forms occur also 
connecting R, hederaceus with R. aquatilis. R. tripartitus is a form 
with 3-lobed or partite leaves and longer narrow 3-nerved petals; and 
