Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Ranunculus lappaceus
Common name
Common buttercup, Australian buttercup
Family
Ranunculaceae
Where found
Moist sites in forest, woodland, and grassy areas, drier places amongst rocks, and swamps. Widespread.
Notes
Perennial herb to 1.7 m high. Flowering stems with appressed or spreading hairs. Leaves all or mostly basal, 1.2–11 cm long, 12–110 mm wide, compound with 3 leaflets or deeply dissected, the segments toothed or again divided into 3, or the leaf reduced to the trilobed terminal segment. Surfaces sparsely to densely appressed-hairy. Stem leaves, when present, alternating up the stems, reduced and with narrow lobes, or unlobed. Flowers golden-yellow, with 5 petals each 7–22 mm long, 6–19 mm wide. Nectary pouch at the base of the petals usually wedge-shaped, broadest in the upper part, and broader than long. Sepals spreading, often hairy on the back. Flowering stems usually branched, with 1–10 flowers. Plants from alpine and subalpine sites, and occasionally at lower elevations in the ACT, frequently have single-flowered inflorescences. Seeds usually about 20–50, 1.7–3.5 mm long, oval coming to a point, sides convex, smooth or dimpled, the beak weakly to strongly arched, tip hooked, 0.8–2 mm long. Flowering: Winter to Summer.
A robust form, with plant height and leaf measurements at the top end of the range, occurs on the mid-Murray River floodplain (Vic and NSW) downstream from about Albury.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Ranunculus~lappaceus (accessed 4 February, 2021)
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