Ranunculus.] RANUNCULACEAE. 451 
I am indebted to Mr. Enys for an instructive series of specimens, all collected in 
one locality, showing passage-forms of leaves, from trilobate with entire lobes to 
tritoliolate with almost multifid leaflets. In Mr. Petrie’s Mount Cardrona plant the 
leaves are trilobate, with the lobes entire or toothed, and the habit is somewhat different ; 
but it is in young flower only, and more advanced specimens are required to prove its 
exact position with respect to the typical state. 
35. R. pachyrrhizus Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 8.—Small, stout, 
much depressed, forming dense patches seldom more than 13 in. high, more 
or less clothed with long soft hairs. Rootstock stout, fleshy, creeping, 
branched; rootlets thick and stringy. Leaves crowded at the ends of 
the divisions of the rootstock, all radical, small, somewhat fleshy ; petioles 
stout, flattened, ++ in. long; blade }-3in. diam., cuneate or obovate- 
cuneate, with 3-5 acute or obtuse teeth or lobes. Scape short, stout, 
1-flowered, 1-lin. high. Flowers }-2in. diam. Sepals 5, silky, linear- 
oblong, membranous. Petals 8-15, linear-obovate, with 1 or sometimes 
3 glands a little distance above the base. Receptacle hairy. Achenes 
forming a globose head $in. diam., turgid, rounded, glabrous or with a 
few long weak hairs; style stout, subulate——T7. Kirk Students’ Fl. (1899) 
19; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 24. 
Soute Istanp: Otago—Lake district, Hector and Buchanan! Garvie Mountains, 
Poppelwell ; Old Man Range, Hector Mountains, Mount Pisa, Mount Cardrona, Mount 
Tyndall, Petrie / Altitudinal range 4000-7000 ft. January—March. 
A singular little plant, of very peculiar habit and appearance. It is not allied 
to any other species of the creeping section of the genus, and would perhaps have been 
better placed in the vicinity of R. sericophyllus. 
36. R. macropus Hook. f. in Hook. Ic. Plant. (1844) t. 634.—Perfectly 
glabrous, smooth and succulent. Stems long, fistulose, branched, creeping 
and rooting at the nodes, 1-2 ft. long. Radical leaves on slender petioles 
varying in length from 6-18 in. ; blade 1-24 in. diam., semicircular, flabellate 
or reniform in outline, 3-5-partite to the base; leaflets broad or narrow- 
obcuneate, more or less deeply and irregularly lobed and cut, lobes toothed 
at the tips. Flowering stem as long as or longer than the radical leaves, 
simple or branched, bearing 2-4 small cauline leaves, opposite to each of 
which springs a long or short 1-flowered peduncle. Flowers small, 4-3 in. 
diam. Sepals 5, oblong, spreading. Petals 3-5, rarely more, longer or 
shorter than the sepals, narrow linear-oblong, obtuse, gland near the base. 
Achenes forming a small globose head, turgid, glabrous; style rather long, 
subulate.—Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 10; Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 7; T. Kirk 
Students’ Fl. (1899) 17; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 24. R. longipetio- 
latus Col. on Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxv (1893) 325. 
Norta AND SoutH Isnanps: Ponds and marshes from the Kaipara River and 
Auckland Isthmus southwards to Otago. December—January. 
A curious species, remarkable for the very long petioles of the radical leaves, an 
the weak flowering stems, which often scramble through sedges and other swam 
vegetation. It usually occurs in ponds or marshes that are covered with water during 
the winter and spring, but are laid bare in autumn. | 
GG. MASA, “Arenal . 
37. R. rivularis Banks and Sol. ex Forst. f. Prodr. (17 86Yn. 524.—Smooth, 
perfectly glabrous in all its parts. Stems creeping, often branched and 
forming broad matted patches, rooting at the nodes and giving off tufts 
of radical leaves and erect peduncles or weak sparingly branched flowering 
stems, or floating and irregularly branched. Leaves on slender petioles 
15* 
