DETAILED CHARACTERS OF IMPORTANT 
NEW ZEALAND ORDERS. 
DICOTYLEDONS. 
Order I. RANUNCULACE. 
Herss with alternate or radical leaves, or climbing shrubs. 
with opposite leaves. Flowers regular or irregular. Sepals. 
3-8 or more, often petaloid, usually deciduous. Petals 5-20, 
or wanting, sometimes reduced to nectaries. Stamens oo, 
free; anthers adnate, dehiscing by lateral shts. Carpels oo, 
usually free and 1-celled; ovules 1 or more on the ventral 
suture, anatropous. Fruit of 1-seeded achenes or many- 
seeded follicles ; seeds small, with copious endosperm and a 
minute embryo. (Pp. 38-15, figs. 1-8.) 
¥ 
The order is a somewhat large one in temperate and cold regions, but 
rare in the tropics, and includes about 30 genera and 500 species. Of this 
number 4 genera are represented by 35 species in New Zealand. Of these, 
Clematis (6 sp.) and Caltha (1 sp.) are Australian in affinity: Myoswrus 
aristatus is found also in America. Ofthe 27 species of Ranwnculais, the 
most areendemic. A few introduced species of the latter genus have gone 
wild in many parts of the colony. 
Many of the genera are cultivated for their flowers—e.g., Clematis, 
Anemone, Adonis, Ranunculus (the New Zealand R. lyallvi being the finest 
species known), Helleborws (Christmas Rose), Hranthis (Winter Aconite), 
Nigella (Love in a Mist), Aquwilegia (Columbine), Delphiniwm (Larkspur), 
Aconitum (Monkshood), and Ponta (Peony Rose). Many of these, as 
their trivial names imply, have irregular flowers. 
Most plants of the order are acrid, and some are poisonous. From 
their powerful properties, many, such as Aconite, are most valuable as. 
medicines, 
Order III. Crucirer”. 
Herbs, with radical or alternate exstipulate leaves. 
Flowers racemed. Sepals 4, 2 often saccate at the -base. 
Petals 4, placed crosswise, imbricate. Stamens 6, tetra- 
dynamous, sometimes reduced to 4, 2, or 1. Ovary 2-celled 
by a false dissepiment (replum); stigma simple or 2-lobed ; 
ovules 2 or more on two parietal placentae. Fruit a siliqua or 
silicula, opening by 2 valves, rarely indehiscent, or dehiscing 
transversely ; seeds exalbuminous, with large cotyledons, the 
radicle facing the edges of the cotyledons (accwmbent), or lying 
on the back of one of them (incumbent). (Pp. 16-19, figs. 9-19.) 
