Yellow Water Buttercup

(Ranunculus flabellaris)

 

   

 

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

Yellow Water Buttercup (Ranunculus flabellaris Raf.)

Identification: Plant aquatic. Flowers yellow, large, with 5 to 7 petals, emergent from the water. Leaves highly divided into filament-like segments, the segments submerged below water.

Distribution: Throughout most of North America, but absent from parts of the southern United States.

Habitat: Yellow Water Buttercup is an aquatic species found in ponds and the shallow edges of lakes and quiet rivers.

Flowering period: May to June.

Similar Species: There are other aquatic species of buttercups with filamentous leaves. White Water Buttercup (Ranunculus longirostris) (not treated here) has white, not yellow, flowers.

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