RANUNCULACEAE, THE BUTTERCUP FAMILY

A FAMILY WITH GREAT DIVERSITY OF

FLOWER DESIGN
 The Ranunculaceae or buttercup family is far-flung across the
globe except in the tropics with many genera sporting different
flower designs

• The family is noted for many garden ornamentals as well as

toxic plants, whose poisonous principles, used in small doses,
may be therapeutic
• None are used for food
• The family is nearly entirely herbaceous, most of the
members perennial
• California is home to a number of genera with several
beautiful species for the garden
Although the flower designs are diverse, several features help to
make identification relatively easy

• The leaves are often either palmately lobed and veined or

ternately compound, and lack stipules
• The flowers feature (usually) 5 separate sepals and petals
(petals sometimes replaced by colored sepals), numerous
spirally arranged stamens, and several to many simple pistils
with superior ovaries
• The fruit typically becomes either a single-seeded achene or a
multiseeded follicle (one native exception)
• The family most likely to be confused with it is the Rosaceae,
whose herbaceous members often also have numerous
stamens and simple pistils but rosaceous plants have stipules,
and (in the herbaceous species) an apparently double calyx
Here is an example of similar flower design in the two families:
on the left is buttercup, on the right potentilla from the rose
family
 As mentioned, there are different flower designs in the
Ranunculaceae, which relate to pollination

• One line features rather flat flowers, the stamens and pistils
open to all sorts of different pollinators. Genera include
Ranunculus, Anemone, Caltha, and Clematis
• Another line has elimintaed colorful petals and sepals and is
wind pollinated. The principal genus for that design is
Thalictrum
• Another line has added special nectar spurs to a symmetrical
flower in the genus Aquilegia,
• Finally some genera have irregular flowers with hoods or
spurs that attract butterflies and bumblebees. Our two genera
are Delphinium and Aconitum
The type genus Ranunculus or buttercup features green sepals
and colorful, usually yellow or white petals, and produces
achene type fruits. Here you see the common California
buttercup, R. californicus
California buttercup blooms in early spring and is widespread in
oak woodlands and grasslands. Here you see a potential
pollinator. Note that this species has 10 or more petals as
compared to most other buttercups.
Typical buttercup leaves are deeply palmately lobed.
While California butterucp lives in dry woods, R. orthorhynchus
bloomeri lives in coastal wetlands.
The creeping buttercup, R. flammula sports tiny flowers on
creeping stems by marshes and other wetlands
Another creeping buttercup, R. repens, is an aggressive perennial
from Europe spreading by runners in moist coastal woods
Several buttercups live in moist mountain meadows like this R.
alismaefolius. Note the unlobed leaves, an unusual feature of
this species.
Meanwhile, the alpine buttercup, R. eschscholzii, favors rocky
slopes that are irrigated underneath by snow melt.
Perhaps the most unusual buttercup is the water buttercup, R.
aquatilis that lives in slow streams and ponds, covering the
water in season with snowy white flowers
Here you see the two kinds of leaves on water buttercup—
surface leaves that resemble other species and underwater
leaves that are divided into slender filaments
Our other genera with flat flowers lack petals and instead substitute colorful
sepals to attract polliinators. Anemone or wind flower has several attractive
species. Here you see a flower of woodland anemone, A. deltoides from
northern conifer forests.
A close view of A. deltoides flower shows the numerous stamens
and central mound of numerous, tiny green pistils
 The more delicate rue-anemone, A. oregana, grows in coastal
forests from the Bay Area northwards and features smaller white
to purple-tinted flowers. Note the trifoliate leaves.
By contrast, A. drummondii or Drummond’s anemone, lives on
loose scree slopes in the high Klamath Mountains. It is actually
easy to grow in containers and blooms in summer.
Occasional individuals of A. drummondii feature blue-purple
flowers.
 The western anemone or pasque-flower, A. occidentalis, is
another high-mountain dweller, widely scattered from Mt Shasta
south into the high Sierra. Note the feathery, much-divided
leaves, a feature it share with A. drummondii
Western anemone has flowers on stalks to a foot high. This
species has proven very difficult to cultivate.
 Anemones produce achenes with fuzzy hairs, in the case of
western anemone, plumed styles that carry seeds on the wind.
Note the huge number of fruits from a single flower.
The so-called marsh marigoldm Caltha howellii, is not a marigold
at all but rather, looks like a white anemone. It is distinguished
by follicles in fruit and unique kidney-shaped leaves.
 Here’s a close view of a marsh marigold flower. The flowers
appear just after snow melt in high, wet mountain meadows
 Our last genus with flat flowers is Clematis or virgin’s bower,
noted for being a woody, deciduous vine, the only member of
the family with this habit. Here you see a vine smothering a
shrub.
 Our most common species, C. lasiantha, grows in chaparral
throughout the foothills and is usually dioecious. Here you see a
male flower with its numerous stamens.
Like western anemone, Clematis produces numerous achenes
per flower, each tipped by a long plumelike style for wind
dispersal.
A second clematis is C. ligusticfiolia, a widespread riparina
species that blooms in summer rather than spring.
Although both clematises have similar fruits, the flowers of C.
ligusticifolia are much smaller than those of C. lasiantha.
The genus Thalictrum meadowrue is mainly wind pollinated,
featuring greenish flowers with long protruding stamens and
pistils. Here you see the highly ternately compound leaves of
foothill meadowrue, T. polycarpum, in early spring
Our common meadowrues, T. fendleri from mountain meadows
and T. polycarpum from foothill woodlands are both dioecious.
Here you see the long stamens of the male flowers.
The female flowers ripen into green, one-seeded achenes in fruit
 The columbines in the genus Aquilegia (meaning eagle for the nectar spurs)
are a unique group with 5 spreading colored sepals, 5 petals, each ending in a
nectar spur, and numerous long stamens. Here you see the widespread red
columbine, A. formosa
Red columbine makes a splendid forest garden plant, living in
woods in the coastal foothills and climbing into the high Sierra.
This flower is a favorite with hummingbirds.
 The serpentine red columbine, A. eximia, is scattered on
serpentine seeps, featuring similar looking red flowers and blue-
green leaves.
Columbine leaves are often bluis green and ternately compound,
overall similar in pattern to meadowrue.
 A. pubescens, the alpine columbine, has horizontally held pale
flowers with extra long nectar spurs. It is hawkmoth pollinated.
Often alpine columbine also has a pale yellow form
Where alpine and red columbines overlap in distribution, hybrids
may occur. This clump of alpine columbine shows the influence
of the red columbine by its pink sepals. Happily, the alpine
columbine grows well in Bay Area gardens.
 The baneberry, Actaea rubra, is an unusual member of the
buttercup family that doesn’t fit any particular mold. Living in
moist forests, it sends up large highly compound leaves in
midspring.
Baneberry blooms in late spring to early summer with narrow
panicles of tiny white flowers.
Unlike any other Ranculaceae, baneberry produces shiny red
berries, which are highly toxic but add a flash of color to the
summer garden.
Another unusual member of Ranunculaceae is the gold-thread,
Coptis laciniata, which forms sprawling semiwoody colonies in
the deep shade of coastal forests
Goldthread’s umbels of tiny white flowers are followed by
papery follicles
 Our last two genera are the ones with irregular flowers. We’ll
start with Aconitum columbianum or monkshood, which favors
wet meadows and streamside in the mountains.
The name monkshood refers to the hooded upper sepal, the
other sepals smaller and of a different shape. Meanwhile, the
petals have been modified into small, nectar-secreting glands
hidden inside the sepal hood.
 Only one species of monkshood lives in California but there is
considerable color variation in the flowers. Bumblebees are the
primary pollinators.
While there’s only one species monkshood, California is home to
quite a number of larkspurs in the genus Delphinium (the name
means dolphin for the sleek shape of the flowers)

• Larkspurs all share a similar floral plan: 5 showy sepals, the

upper producing a long nectar spur, and 4 smaller, two-lipped
petals partially hiding the numerous stamens
• Larkspurs occur from coastal bluffs and grasslands into the
high mountains, sometimes in woodlands, sometimes in wet
meadows, and other times in rocky scree
• Identification of species from keys is difficult because you’re
required to dig up the plant to see whether it has easily
removed tuberous roots or a strong tough taproot.
• Larkspurs seldom last long in gardens but are very ornamental
• Larkspur flower colors include white, purple, blue, scarlet red,
yellow, and pink
Here you see a close side view of desert larkspur, D. parishii
flower, revealing the petals partially hiding the stamens
Two common blue to purple foothills larkspurs are D. patens on
the left, and D. variegatum or royal larkspur on the right
 The seep larkspur, D. uliginosum, is an unsual blue-flowered
species blooming in early summer on temporary streams on
serpentine rock on Walker Ridge and other parts of the inner
north Coast Ranges.
The northern larkspur, D. trolliifolium, is a robust plant living on
the edge of moist forests
The spectacular meadow larkspur, D. glaucum, is a common sight
in high mountain meadows growiing up to 5 feet high in summer.
 The California larkspur, D. californicum, despite attractive
delphinium-like leaves has rather disappointingly drab, hairy
flowers on 3-foot stalks and lives in brushy woods in the Bay
Area
Our only yellow larkspur, D. luteum, is a dwarf growing on coastal
bluffs near Bodega Bay but is easy to grow in gardens.
 Closely related is the scarlet larkspur (D. nudicaule), a
hummingbird flower common on rocky semi-shaded slopes in
the foothills.
Scarlet larkspur leaves are typical of the genus, broad, rounded
in outline and deeply palmately lobed.
 A similar species from Southern California, D. cardinale or
cardinal larkspur, produces taller flowering stalks to 4 or more
feet high, blooms in summer, and grows in dry chaparral
Finally, the rare pink larkspur, D. purpusii, makes an appearance
on semishaded rocky slopes in Kern River canyon and similar
places in the southern Sierra foothills.
Altogether then, the buttercup family provides the gardener with
many attractive and often easy-to-grow species

• A few buttercups are found in the trade, along with the red
columbine, the baneberry, the foothill meadowrue, and a few
larkspurs including the scarlet larkspur
• Although alpine columbine, the various anemones, and many
larkspurs as well as monkshood are difficult to source, most
grow perfectly well in Bay Area gardens