FLO WER-DESCRIPTION 
85 
Ranunculus bulbosus (buttercup). 
Flowers terminal, solitary, on long angular and furrowed peduncles, 
regular, hermaphrodite, hypogynous. Sepals 5, polysepalous, oval, 
coloured at the edge, reflexed, with shaggy hairs. Petals 5, poly- 
petalous, roundish, concave, with wedge-shaped basal nectaries, bright 
yellow. Stamens 00 , polyandrous, spiral ; filament yellow, slender ; 
anther linear, adnate, extrorse. Carpels 00 , apocarpous, superior, 
collected into a nearly spherical head, greenish ; stigmas sessile, 
recurved ; ovules solitary, ascending, anatropous. 
Taraxacum dens-leonis (dandelion). 
Flower-heads on long scapes, involucrate ; the outer leaves of the 
involucre linear, acute, recurved, in several rows ; the inner erect, in 
one row. Common receptacle flat, naked. Flowers all ligulate, 
hermaphrodite, epigynous with pappose calyx. Corolla sympetalous, 
ligulate, with 5 teeth, bright yellow. Stamens 5, epipetalous, with 
yellow introrse syngenesious anthers. Ovary inferior, compressed, 
unilocular; ovule 1, basal, erect, anatropous; style filiform, bifid at 
apex ; stigmas upon the inner surfaces of the branches. 
For further details see such books as Lindley’s Descriptive 
Botany. 
We pass on to deal with the special ecology of the 
flower, the general principles of which have already been set 
forth. 
Wind-Pollination or Anemophily , as we have seen 
(p. 60), was probably the earliest method of pollen trans- 
port from flower to flower. Many anemophilous flowers 
exist at the present day, and in considering them we are 
met with the usual difficulty of deciding whether they are 
primitively so (p. 75) or have become so by degeneration 
from entomophilous forms. When in a family whose mem- 
bers are mostly insect-pollinated we meet with one or two 
anemophilous forms we are fairly safe in calling these 
degenerate; such cases are Artemisia in Compositae, Pringlea 
in Cruciferae, Poterium in Rosaceae, and probably Thalic- 
trum in Ranunculaceae (see Part II.); intermediate cases 
of more doubtful nature are seen in Plantaginaceae, Poly- 
gonaceae (Rheum and Rumex), Salicaceae, &c. With the 
exception of the Gymnosperms and the catkinate families 
(Betulaceae, Fagaceae, Juglandaceae, &c.), which we know 
from other evidence to be of a very ancient type, we cannot 
say with any certainty that any anemophilous flower now 
existing is really primitively so. Hence we can only point 
out the general characters of anemophilous flowers without 
being sure in every case whether they are true anemophilous 
