Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Ranunculus sessiliflorus

Common name

Small-flowered buttercup, Annual buttercup

Family

Ranunculaceae

Where found

Dry forest, woodland, and grassy areas, on intermittently moist sites. Widespread.

var. pilulifer:  Western Slopes.

var. sessiliflorus:  Western Slopes, Kosciuszko National Park, the mountains to the north, ACT, and tablelands. Sydney area. Rare elsewhere.

Notes

Annual herb to 0.4 m tall, variably hairy to almost hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.4-2 cm long, 4-20 mm wide, hairy to hairless. Juvenile leaves often kidney shaped and broader than long, compound or lobed, with 3-5 toothed to scalloped lobes or leaflets. Adult leaves dissected or compound with 3-5 lobes or leaflets, the lobes or leaflets sometimes toothed or again divided. Flowers about 2-4 mm in diameter with 0-2 yellow or pale yellow-green to whitish petals each 1-2 mm long, and 3-4 sepals 1.5-2.5 mm long. Sepals curved down. Flowers single at the bases of the leaves, stalkless or on short stalks. Flowers Spring-Summer.  Seeds about 10–20, oval to round, 1.5–2 mm long, flat to slightly biconvex, the faces with scattered warts each terminated by a hooked bristle; beak pointed, about 0.3–0.5 mm long.

var. pilulifer:  Leaves deeply lobed with narrow-linear segments; margins entire or pointedly toothed.

var. sessiliflorus:  Leaves shallowly to deeply 3–5-lobed, the lobes more or less fan-shaped, entire or with blunt to broadly pointed teeth.

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~sessiliflorus (accessed 4 February, 2021)