Ranuncidacece.} 
THE COLONY OP VICTORIA. 
9 
Sect. III. Echinella, Oand. Prodr. i. 41. 
Petals generally yellow, with a scaly nectar-pit. Carpels scabrous or prickly. 
Ranunculus parviflorus, I/inne, SIp. PI. 780; i». sessiliflorns, R. Br. in Cand. Syst. i. 302; R. 
Pumilio, R. Br. I, c. i. 271; R. pilulifer, Hook. Icon, 000; R. leptocaulis, Hook. Journ. Bot. i. 244.—Small- 
flowered Crowfoot. 
Stems annual, erect or procumbent, as well as the leaves villous, rarer smooth; leaves small, simply or 
doubly three-lobed or three-toothed or hi- and tri-ternately dissected; lobes or segments ovate, lanceolate, 
cuneate or linear, generally with a few acute teeth; flowers opposite to the leaves on a thin peduncle or sessile; 
sepals at last reflexed, small, not, or but little, rarely considerably, shorter than the yellow petals; stamens 
few; receptacle smooth; carpels compressed, with a smooth edge, covered with short hair, minute tubercles, 
or short hooked bristles ; fruit-style recurved at the summit. 
On moist pastures and banks of rivers and lagoons, not rare. Distributed over nearly the whole of 
extratropical Australia and throughout Tasmania. Found also in New Zealand, Middle and South Europe, 
North and South Africa, and North America. 
A flaccid herb, varying in length between 1 inch and 1| foot. Stems often numerous, either few- 
branclied or simple; their upper part sometimes appressed-liairy. Root consisting of a bundle of fibres. 
Leaves mostly 1-11 inch long, the lower on longer, the upper ones on shorter petioles; their segments not 
rarely stalked. Flowers more frequently stalked than sessile. Peduncles very short or upwards of an inch 
long, very slender, furrowed. Calyx hairy. Petals oblong, yellow, five, or occasionally only 3-4, measuring 
1-1J line. Anthers oval. Carpels brown, never quite smooth, generally not numerous, still occasionally so, 
forming a globular head, §-li rarely 2 lines long, moderately or slightly turgid, or less commonly flat- 
compressed, oblique ovate or nearly orbicular, sometimes with a conspicuous flat acumen, formed by the 
enlarged base of the style, but in other instances with an inconspicuous apex, all intermediate forms 
occurring. 
If, as may be presumed, this species is a cosmopolitan one, then many others yet described from various 
countries will be combinable with it. The close affinity of Ranunculus sessiliflorns and Pumilio to R. parvi- 
florus has already been pointed out by Candolle (Syst. Veg. i. 271 and 302), and by J. Hooker (Flora Tasmanica, 
i. 10); but their real identity had long been manifest to me, when observing the manifold varieties of this 
species in various parts of this country. The European specimens which I compared have rather larger 
carpels. 
The Ranunculus muricatus, L., not being indigenous here, although now wild around Melbourne, has 
been omitted in this enumeration. It differs but slightly, perhaps not even specifically, from R. parviflorus, 
chiefly in general smoothness and in larger size of all its parts. I find its sepals in the fresh state perfectly 
reflexed, and occasionally its carpels smooth. 
Sect. IV. Pseud adonis, F. M. 
Petals yellow and purplish, with three naked nectar-pits above the base. Carpels smooth. 
Ranunculus Gunnianus, Hook. Journ. of Bot. i . p. 245, t. cxxxiii. 
Stemless, perennial, erect; fibres of root thick, fasciculate, rarely in a creeping rhizome detached; 
petioles generally much longer than the leaves, at the base shagged-silky, surrounded by the bristly remains 
of decayed leaf-stalks; leaves glabrous or scantily hairy, simply or oftener double-pinnatisected; segments 
rather fleshy, short, narrow-lanceolate or linear, acute, entire or again cleft, with a terminal gland; peduncles 
one- rarely two-flowered, bractless, rarely with a solitary linear bract, silky-hairy, smooth in age, except the 
summit; petals 5-10, oblong- or rarely obovate-cuneate, inside yellow, outside purplish, generally not much 
B 
