224 BOTANY 
The line drawn below indicates that the pistil 
is superior, 2..¢e., set on the receptacle above 
the rest of the flower. A line above would 
indicate that it was inferior. 
NEw ZEALAND REPRESENTATIVES. 
1. Ranunculus lyalli, the so-called Mount Cook 
Lily is a large white buttercup growing on the summits 
of the Southern Alps—perhaps the finest buttercup in 
existence. New Zealand is rich in mountain buttercups. 
2. Clematis indivisa (Fig. 125)—a woody climber 
found chiefly on the edge of the forest. The leaves 
are compound (three lobed) and leathery, and the 
plant climbs by twisting the leaf petioles round objects 
with which it comes into contact. The plant is 
dioecious (7.e., the staminate flowers or flowers bearing 
stamens, and the pistillate flowers or flowers bearing 
pistils, are produced on different plants). The flower 
is large and white, the sepals being petaloid and the 
petals absent. The male flower is the finer. In the 
staminate flower we have stamens but no carpels, while 
in the pistilate flower there are numerous carpels 
surrounded by a ring of staminodes (7.e., stamens that 
have no anthers and thus produce no pollen). 
The presence of these staminodes would seem to 
show that the clematis was not always dioecious. The 
fruit is an achene as in most other members of this 
order, but the style becomes feathery and forms a con- 
venient means for distribution of the seed by the wind. 
The clematis belongs to this order, because, like 
the buttercup, it has a hypogynous flower in which 
there «.:e numerous free stamens and earpels. 
CoMMON EXAMPLES. 
In the following common plants the chief character- 
istics are the same as those of the buttercup and 
clematis, but there are certain points of difference, 
