Woodland Buttercup

Description

Ranunculus peduncularis is a large perennial buttercup that grows in Patagonia on the margins of woods, scrubs and along streams, with long stems and deeply divided leaves. In the wild it flowers from spring to summer. Ranunculus peduncularis is a perennial herbaceous plant of 10–50 cm (3.9–19.7 in) high, that grows in tufts from a rhizome. Its leaves are round, 6–8 cm in diameter, deeply incised to compound into three leaflets, each one of them two to three-lobed, with petioles of up to 20 cm (7.9 in) long. The flowers of 3½ cm (1.4 in) in diameter stand alone or with two or three together on a stem. The ten to twenty-two oblong petals are glossy rich yellow. In the variety erodiifolius the leaf is more deeply cut and the segments are narrower. Ranunculus peduncularis is known from Chile and Argentina, where it grows from the central cordilleras in the North to Tierra del Fuego in the South, on grassy banks of stream, in meadows with scrubs and on the margin of woods, between sea level to 2,500 m (8,200 ft) depending on latitude. In Argentina the species has been found in the provinces Chubut, Mendoza, Neuquen, Rio Negro, Santa Cruz, and Tierra del Fuego, in Chile it occurs in the provinces Coquimbo, Valparaiso, O'Higgins, Maule, Bio Bio, Araucania, Los Lagos, Aisen, Magallanes, and Region Metropolitana. Ranunculus is a large genus of about 600 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots. The familiar and widespread buttercup of gardens throughout Northern Europe (and introduced elsewhere) is the creeping buttercup Ranunculus repens, which has extremely tough and tenacious roots. Two other species are also widespread, the bulbous buttercup Ranunculus bulbosus and the much taller meadow buttercup Ranunculus acris. In ornamental gardens, all three are often regarded as weeds. Buttercups usually flower in the spring, but flowers may be found throughout the summer, especially where the plants are growing as opportunistic colonizers, as in the case of garden weeds. The water crowfoots (Ranunculus subgenus Batrachium), which grow in still or running water, are sometimes treated in a separate genus Batrachium (from Greek βάτραχος bátrakhos, "frog"). They have two different leaf types, thread-like leaves underwater and broader floating leaves. In some species, such as R. aquatilis, a third, intermediate leaf type occurs.