4 
1. RANTTNCULACEiE. 
spreading; descr. in part only) not Willd. R. megaphyllus 
Steud. — Ledges and clefts of wet or shady rocks, especially near 
waterfalls, in ravines everywhere above 3000 ft., ■§. Rib. Frio, 
Rib. da Metade, de Seisal, de Janella, Serra d’Agoa, Boa Ventura, 
&c. A noble pi., gigantic in its genus, conspicuous on high 
rocks with its broad ample shining 1. and vast corymbs of fine 
golden y. fl. often as large as a crownpiece or dollar. 
3- minor ; altogether smaller and usually more villose-hairy 
than a, with the lower or root-1, pinnatipartite or more deeply 
cut and divided than in a, and only 2-4 in. broad ; st. 1-2 ft. 
high ; corymb of fewer generally smaller fl., and fruit-spikes 
sometimes distinctly oblong. — Hook. J. ofBot. 9. 72. R. creticus 
var. macrophyllus Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1432. — Moist open grassy 
banks, and thickets of Vacdnium, L Paul da Serra, and close 
below the waterfall at the head of the Rib. de Luzia. — A 
starved or depauperated form of a, sometimes almost hoary- 
villose. 
For a fuller accoimt of R. grandifolius and its nearest allies 
R. creticus L. and cortuscefolius Willd., with one or both of 
which it has been usually united, see a Paper in Hook. Joum. 
of Bot. ix. 65. The Cretan pi. is on the whole rather more 
nearly related to the Canarian than to the Madeiran or Azorian 
sp., ranking intermediately according to affinity between the 
two, instead of coming in the order of its geographical position. 
Nothing like the true Canarian R. cortuscefolius Willd. (Deless. 
Ic. 1. t. 36, opt.) has occurred in Madeira to myself or to any 
other botanist of my acquaintance. But in the BII. the hab. 
“ Madeira, Fr. Masson ” is affixed to an undoubted specimen 
of the pi. with its. characteristic smaller thinner sparingly cre- 
nate black-specked 1. sprinkled with bulbous hairs, its smaller 
scattered not corymbosely crowded fl. on slender elongated 
stalks, and altogether more delicate habit. Masson however 
having collected in Teneriflfe immediately after Madeira, a 
mistake might easily arise from accidental transposition of his 
specimens or labels. 
ft Root fibrous. 
t+2. R. ACItIB L. Tall upright Crowfoot. 
More or less hairy; st. erect, branched many-flowered ; 1. pnl- 
matelv 3-5-part ite, the segments trifid deeply and sharply cut 
and toothed ; upper st.-l. tripartite with linear segments ; pedic. 
round ; sep. pubescent spreading ; ach. oval smooth marginate 
with a very short slightly hooked beak; recept. smooth. — Brot. 
