_Herbs or some woody plants, with a colorless and usually acrid juice, polypetalous, or apetalous with the calyx often colored like a corolla, hypogynous; the sepals, petals, numerous stamens, and many or few (rarely single) pistils all distinct and unconnected._--Flowers regular or irregular. Sepals 3--15. Petals 3--15, or wanting. Stamens indefinite, rarely few. Fruits either dry pods, or seed-like (achenes), or berries. Seeds anatropous (when solitary and suspended the rhaphe dorsal), with hard albumen and a minute embryo.--Leaves often dissected, their stalks dilated at the base, sometimes with stipule-like appendages. (A large family, including some acrid-narcotic poisons.) Synopsis of the Genera. Tribe I. CLEMATIDEÆ. Sepals normally 4, petal-like, valvate in the bud, or with the edges bent inward. Petals none, or small. Achenes numerous, tailed with the feathery or hairy styles. Seed suspended.--Leaves all opposite. 1. Clematis. Climbing by the leafstalks, or erect herbs. Tribe II. ANEMONEÆ. Sepals 3--20, often petal-like, imbricated in the bud. Stamens mostly numerous. Achenes numerous or several, in a head or spike.--Herbs, never climbing; leaves alternate, or radical, the upper sometimes opposite or whorled. [*] Petals none (rarely some staminodia). Seed suspended. [+] All but the lower leaves opposite or whorled. Peduncles 1-flowered. 2. Anemone. Involucre leaf-like, remote from the flower. Leaves compound or dissected. Pistils very many. 3. Hepatica. Involucre close to the flower, of 3 oval bracts, calyx-like. Leaves radical, simple and lobed. Pistils several. 4. Anemonella. Stigma terminal, broad and flat. Radical leaves and involucre compound. Peduncles umbellate. Achenes 4--15, many-ribbed. [+][+] Leaves alternate, compound. Flowers panicled, often diœcious. 5. Thalictrum. Sepals usually 4, petal-like or greenish, Achenes few. [*][*] Petals none. Sepals 3--5, caducous. Seed erect. Leaves alternate. 6. Trautvetteria. Achenes numerous, inflated, 4-angled. Flowers corymbose. Filaments white, clavate. [*][*][*] Petals evident. Sepals usually 5. Achenes many. 7. Adonis. Sepals and petals (5--16, crimson or scarlet) flat, unappendaged. Seed suspended. 8. Myosurus. Sepals spurred. Petals 5, white. Achenes in a long spike. Scapes 1-flowered. Seed suspended. 9. Ranunculus. Petals 5, yellow or white, with a scale or gland at base. Achenes capitate. Seed erect. Tribe III. HELLEBOREÆ. Sepals imbricated in the bud, rarely persistent, petal-like. Petals often nectariferous or reduced to staminodia or none. Pods (follicles) or berries (in n. 20, 21) few, rarely single, few--many-seeded.--Leaves alternate. [*] Ovules and commonly seeds more than one pair. Herbs. [+] Flowers regular, not racemose. Petals inconspicuous nectaries or slender or none. Sepals tardily deciduous. 10. Isopyrum. Petals none. Sepals broad, white. Pods few. Leaves compound.