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Ranunculus
Also called `awa Kanaloa genus, Buttercup genus, Crowfoot genus, Makou genus, Buttercups, Water Crowfoot, Crowfoot
Ranunculus is a large genus of about 1750 species of flowering plants, known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots, mostly found in temperate and mountain regions worldwide. Many species, such as creeping buttercup, are common garden weeds, and the care notes below reflect the genus broadly rather than one species.
Ranunculus () is a large genus of about 1750 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots.
The genus is distributed worldwide, primarily in temperate and montane regions. 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.
All Ranunculus (buttercup) species are poisonous when eaten fresh, but their acrid taste and the blistering of the mouth caused by their poison means they are usually left uneaten. Poisoning in livestock can occur where buttercups are abundant in overgrazed fields where little other edible plant growth is left, and the animals eat them out of desperation. Symptoms of poisoning include bloody diarrhea, excessive salivation, colic, and severe blistering of the mouth, mucous membranes and gastrointestinal tract. When Ranunculus plants are handled, naturally occurring ranunculin is broken down to form protoanemonin, which is known to cause contact dermatitis in humans and care should therefore be exercised in extensive handling of the plants. The toxins are degraded by drying, so hay containing dried buttercups is safe.
Buttercups are found in both hemispheres on all continents aside from Antarctica, and are primarily found in temperate or montane habitats. They likely originated in northern Eurasia during the late Eocene or Oligocene and rapidly radiated up to the present, dispersing worldwide. Fossil evidence suggests that despite no longer occurring there, they inhabited Antarctica up to the mid-late Pliocene, even while glaciations were rapidly altering the landscape.
Littleleaf buttercup · Aconite-leaf buttercup · Meadow buttercup · White water crowfoot · Asian Buttercup · Brackish Water-crowfoot · St. Anthony's turnip · Ranunculus calandrinioides · California buttercup · Greater creeping spearwort · Glacier buttercup · Ranunculus gramineus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ranunculus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
