Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/65

Ranunuclus.] The usual form of this species, with very long petioles and broad leaf-segments, has a very distinct appearance; but small varieties are difficult to distinguish from R. rivularis, var. major. Mr. Colenso's R. longipetiolatus, judging from the specimens in his herbarium, cannot be separated even as a variety.

33. R. rivularis, Banks and Sol. ex Forst. Prodr. n. 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 pedurxles or weak sparingly branched flowering-stems, or floating and irregularly branched. Leaves on slender petioles 1–6 in. long; blade $1/undefined$–1$1/undefined$ in. diam., ovate semicircular or reniform in outline, usually 3–7-partite to the base; segments varying from cuneate to narrovp-linear, more or less deeply cut at the apex, sometimes to the middle, occasionally ternatisect, rarely entire. Peduncles usually longer than the leaves. Flowers yellow, ¼–¾ in. diam. Sepals 5, spreading. Petals 5–10, linear-oblong, usually longer than the sepals; gland some distance above the base. Achenes turgid, glabrous, sometimes rugose from the shrivelling of the epicarp; style rather long, subulate, straight or recurved.—''A. Cunn. Precur. n. 630; Raoul, Choix de Plantes, 47; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 11; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 8; Kirk, Students' Fl.'' 18.

34. R. acaulis, Banks and Sol. ex D.C. Syst. i. 270.—Small, dark-green, fleshy, perfectly glabrous, sending out creeping stolons and often forming broad matted patches. Leaves all radical, on slender petioles 1–3 in. long; blade ½–¾ in. diam., trifoliolate or deeply 3-lobed; leaflets or segments sessile, obovate or oblong, obtuse, entire or 2–3-lobed. Scapes shorter than the leaves, naked, 1-flowered. Flowers small, ¼–⅓ in. diam. Sepals 5, roundish-ovate,