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Ranunculus repens
Also called Creeping Crowfoot, Double Flowered Creeping Buttercup
Creeping buttercup is a low, spreading perennial weed that roots along its runners and is often a problem in lawns, gardens and farmland. It is grown only rarely as an ornamental, and it thrives in damp soil.
Ranunculus repens, the creeping buttercup, is a flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to Europe, Asia and northwestern Africa. It is also called creeping crowfoot and (along with restharrow) sitfast.
Creeping buttercup was sold in many parts of the world as an ornamental plant, and has now become an invasive species in many parts of the world.
Like most buttercups, Ranunculus repens is poisonous, although these poisons are lost when dried with hay. The taste of buttercups is acrid, so cattle avoid eating them. The plants then take advantage of the cropped ground around them to spread their stolons. Creeping buttercup also is spread through the transportation of hay.
It is a very common weed of agricultural land and gardens, spreading quickly by its rooting stolons and resisting removal with a deeply anchored filamentous root ball. In Ireland: very common in damp places, ditches and flooded areas.
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 repens 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
