Put and differentiate the general form of Clairaut's equation:
Cancellation gives
For the equation is defined only when . There are two types of smooth branch.
First, constant gives the straight-line family
Second, gives , so and . Substituting in the original equation gives its two singular envelope branches,
Their derivatives are indeed , verifying the required value of . There is no finite-slope continuation of either envelope through , and no real envelope branch for .
For completeness, if “solution” requires only a continuous first derivative, one can join a line from the family to the corresponding envelope at their tangency point . The function and its first derivative match there, so such piecewise branches also solve the original first-order equation. They are not twice continuously differentiable at a nontrivial join. The lines and envelope branches above exhaust the smooth branches; allowing these tangent joins supplies the additional solutions.