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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Ranunculaceae
Ranunculus lappaceus

Citation: Smith in Rees, Cyclop. 29: (Ranunculus no. 61) (1815).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Common buttercup, Australian buttercup.

Description:
Perennial herb, 4-170 cm high, with fibrous roots.

Flowering stems simple or branched, with 2-10 flowers, with long spreading hairs at least in the lower part (rarely all hairs appressed but then much longer than in R. robertsonii); leaves mostly basal, hirsute; basal leaves with petioles 2-30 cm long, blades ovate to deltoid, 1.5-8 cm long and almost as broad, usually ternate with deeply dissected or lobed leaflets sometimes almost biternate, the terminal petiolules to 3 cm long and the lateral ones to 1 cm long, lobes lanceolate, usually acute; flowers 2-3.5 cm diam.; sepals 5, spreading, elliptic, 4-10 mm long, concave, hirsute with spreading hairs outside; petals 5, obovate-cuneate, 7-17 mm long, 6-13 mm broad, obtuse or truncate at the apex, 3 primary veins forking near the base and repeatedly so in the lower half of the petal; nectary 0.5-2.5 mm above the base; nectary-lobe cuneate, 0.7-2.4 mm long, usually slightly broader, attached laterally to the petal for one-third to three-quarters of its length; stamens 40-110; carpels 20-50.

Achenes in a globular head 6-9 mm diam., lenticular, obovate-cuneate, 1.7-3.5 mm long, 1.3-2.8 mm dorsiventrally, 0.7-1.2 mm thick, margin narrowly ridged, lateral faces smooth or dimpled, shouldered and slightly rugose below the beak; beak slender, 0.8-1.8 mm long, arched with a recoiled tip; fruiting torus 3-5 mm long; staminal zone glabrous; achene zone hirsute.

image of FSA1_Ranunculus_lap.jpg Ranunculus lappaceus.
Image source: fig 197c in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
image of FSA1_Ranunculus_lap2.jpg Ranunculus lappaceus
Image source: pl. 13left in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 309.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: FR, ?EP, NL, SL, SE.

S.Aust.: FR, EP, NL, MU, SL, SE.   The New Zealand plants so named may not be conspecific.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: July — Dec.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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