MANUAL
OF THE
NEW ZEALAND FLORA.
Order I. RANUNCULACEÆ
Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs or woody climbers. Leaves all radical or alternate, seldom opposite (Clematis). Stipules wanting, or adnate to the petiole. Flowers regular or irregular, hermaphrodite or more rarely unisexual. Sepals 3 or more, usually 5, deciduous, often petaloid, imbricate (valvate in Clematis). Petals the same number as the sepals or more, hypogynous, free, imbricate, sometimes wanting. Stamens hypogynous, usually very numerous; anthers adnate. Carpels generally many, free, 1-celled; ovules one or several, attached to the ventral suture, anatropous. Fruit of numerous 1-seeded indehiscent achenes or many-seeded follicles, rarely a berry. Seeds small; embryo minute, at the base of copious albumen.
A large order, most abundant in temperate regions; rare within the tropics. Genera 30; species about 550. Most of the species are acrid, and many are poisonous. Aconite and Hellebore being familiar examples. All the New Zealand genera are widely distributed in temperate climates.
| Woody climbers with opposite compound leaves. Sepals petaloid, valvate. Petals wanting | 1. Clematis. |
| Minute herbs with radical linear leaves. Petals wanting. Carpels with a single pendulous ovule. Achenes in an elongated spike | 2. Myosurus. |
| Herbs. Sepals deciduous. Petals 3 to many. Carpels with a single erect ovule | 3. Ranunculus. |
| Herbs with radical sagittate leaves. Sepals petaloid. Petals wanting. Carpels with several ovules | 4. Caltha. |
1. CLEMATIS, Linn.
Climbing undershrubs with slender flexuous branches, rarely dwarf and prostrate. Leaves opposite, usually ternately divided into 3 stalked leaflets, which are either entire or more often variously lobed or cut; petioles often twining. Flowers in few- or many-flowered axillary panicles, diœcious in the New Zealand species. Sepals 4–8, petaloid, valvate in the bud. Petals wanting.
