Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/47

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Ranunculus.]
RANUNCULACEÆ.
7

North Island: Palliser Bay, Colenso! Ocean beach near Wellington, Buchanan. South Island: Moist gravelly places near Lake Tekapo, T. F. C. Otago—Hyde, Beaumont, Speargrass Flat, Ida Valley, Lake Wanaka, Petrie! Gimmerburn, Kirk! Altitudinal range from sea-level to 2500 ft.


3. RANUNCULUS, Linn.

Herbs with petioled entire lobed or dissected leaves and yellow or white flowers. Sepals 3–5, deciduous. Petals usually about 5, but varying in number from 4 to 20, with 1–3 glandular pits or scales near the base. Stamens many. Carpels usually numerous; styles short; ovules solitary, ascending. Achenes numerous, 1-seeded, collected into a globular or ovoid head, tipped with the persistent straight or recurved style.

A large genus of about 175 species, dispersed over the whole world, but most numerous in temperate or cool regions. In New Zealand it forms a very conspicuous portion of the mountain vegetation, especially in the South Island; some of the species, as R. Lyallii and R. insignis, being the finest known. Many of them are exceedingly variable and difficult of discrimination, especially in the section with compressed achenes. Of the 37 species known, 4 are found in Australia, 1 in Chili, and another in Kerguelen's Island; the remaining 31 are endemic. In addition to the native species, 8 or 9 from the Northern Hemisphere have become naturalised as weeds in pastures and waste places, the most abundant being R. bulbosus, L., R. hirsutis, Curt. (R. sardous, Crantz), and the typical state of R. parviflorus, L. References to descriptions of these will be found in the appendix.


A. Stems tall, erect. Flowers large. Achenes villous or silky.
* Flowers white.
Leaves large, peltate, margins simply crenate 1. R. Lyallii.
Leaves 3–5-partite or dissected; segments usually linear 2. R. Buchanani.
** Flowers yellow.
Villous. Leaves rounded-cordate or reniform, crenate-lobed 3. R. insignis.
Glabrous. Leaves broadly oblong, crenate. Achenes only slightly hairy 4. R. Godleyanus.
B. Stems erect, without creeping stolons. Achenes glabrotis, turgid or angled, not compressed or margined, never inuricate or tuberculate.
* Stems usually stout, 4–16 in. high. Leaves broad, reniform to ovate, coarsely crenate or dentate.
Leaves reniform to ovate. Scapes 1–many-flowered. Petals twice as long as the sepals 5. R. Monroi.
Leaves rounded-reniform. Scape thickened above, seldom more than 1-flowered. Petals hardly longer than the sepals 6. R. pinguis.
** Stems tall, slender. Leaves deeply cut and lobed. Petals narrow, 8–15.
Pilose, stems 1–3 ft., many-flowered. Flowers 1–1½ in. diam. 7. R. nivicola.
Glabrous or slightly pilose, stems 6–8 in., few-flowered. Flowers ½–1 in. diam. 8. R. geraniifolius.