Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Print Fact Sheet

Ranunculus pentandrus var. platycarpus

Common name

Common Avens, Smooth Buttercup, Inland Buttercup

Family

Ranunculaceae

Where found

Intermittently moist sites and along inland watercourses. Western Slopes.

Notes

Annual herb to 0.4 m high, hairy to sparsely hairy. Stems usually branching. Leaves alternating up the stems, usually 0.7–2.5 cm long, 10-20 mm wide overall, hairless to hairy, with a translucent, usually hairy, sheath at the base. Juvenile leaves entire to broadly 3–5-lobed, later leaves compound, with 3 leaflets or dissected into 3 lobes, the leaflets or lobes sometimes again divided into 3, margins entire or toothed. Flowers pale yellow to white, with 1 or 2 petals 1.4–1.8 mm long, and 5 sepals 1.7-2 mm long. Flowers Jul.–Dec. Seeds usually 10–30, approximately round, 2–4 mm in diameter, strongly flattened, very thin, usually twisted at maturity, with small conical warts each bearing a curved hair scattered over the central half of the faces; and with a triangular beak 0.3–1 mm long.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Ranunculus~pentandrus (accessed 4 February, 2021)