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Electronic Flora of South Australia family Fact Sheet

Ranunculaceae

Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs, usually terrestrial perennials, some waterplants and some annuals, rarely small shrubs or woody climbers; leaves alternate, in a basal rosette, or rarely opposite or whorled, compound or simple, often palmately lobed or dissected, petioles often with sheathing base, usually without stipules.

Flowers solitary and terminal or in determinate inflorescences, hypogynous, usually regular, bisexual, nectar-secreting and insect-pollinated, some zygomorphic, rarely wind-pollinated; perianth petaloid or sepaloid, whorled or spirally arranged, undifferentiated or consisting of calyx and corolla, the latter formed usually of petaloid nectaries (honey-leaves, here treated as petals), rarely true petals (Adonis), usually 5 or more, rarely reduced to 2, 1 or 0; stamens usually many (rarely 2 or 1), spirally arranged; filaments free, anthers extrorse, opening in longitudinal slits, rarely with connective appendages; carpels many to 1, free and spirally arranged or more or less fused and in 1 whorl; style usually well developed; ovules many to 1, ventral or basal, anatropous; integuments 1 or 2.

Fruit of many to 1 follicles or achenes, or rarely a berry or capsule; seeds many to 1, usually with a small embryo and oily endosperm; germination usually epigeal.

Distribution:  About 70 genera, more than 3,000 species, cosmopolitan, predominantly Northern Hemisphere, many alpine. In Australia 10 genera of which 5 are introduced.

Biology: Mostly poisonous (glycosides and alkaloids), some medicinal, several horticultural.

Key to Genera:
1. Climbing shrubs; leaves opposite; stem woody
CLEMATIS 3.
1. Herbs; leaves basal and/or cauline and alternate; stem herbaceous
 
2. Flowers zygomorphic; 1 of the 5 sepals spurred; fruit a follicle
CONSOLIDA 4.
2. Flowers regular; sepals without a spur, or (in Myosurus) all 5 sepals spurred; fruit a head or spike of many achenes
 
3. Leaves linear, all basal; flowers very small, solitary on scapes; fruit a slender subulate spike
MYOSURUS 5.
3. Leaves lobed, dissected or compound, usually some along the stem; flowers solitary or in inflorescences; fruit a globular or elongated head or short cylindrical spike
 
4. Petals without nectaries
ADONIS 1.
4. Petals with nectaries at or above the base
 
5. Petals white with a yellow claw; aquatic plants; leaves divided into capillary segments; ripe achenes transversely rugose; leaf-sheath stipuloid
BATRACHIUM 2.
5. Petals yellow; usually terrestrial or swamp plants; leaves usually lobed or compound, rarely divided into linear segments; ripe achenes smooth, irregularly rugose or tuberculate but not distinctly transversely rugose; leaf-sheath gradually tapering into the petiole
RANUNCULUS 6.

Author: Prepared by Hj. Eichler


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