Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for Bulbous Buttercup - Ranunculus bulbosus   L.
Members of Ranunculaceae:
Members of Ranunculus with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 6 » Order Ranunculales » Family Ranunculaceae
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AuthorL.
DistributionThroughout nearly all of the state; scarce in the Sandhills proper and the southern Coastal Plain.

Native of Eurasia; in N.A. most of eastern U.S. and maritime Canada, also B.C. to northern CA.
AbundanceCommon to often abundant, except rare in the Sandhills and southern Coastal Plain.
HabitatRoadsides, fields, meadows, fallow crop fields, campuses, urban and suburban lawns, forest clearings, disturbed soil. Many a cow pasture is colored yellow with thousands of plants in bloom.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting April-July.
IdentificationBulbous Buttercup is a very familiar and quite attractive, weedy buttercup. It is a perennial with largish (for a buttercup)flowers -- about 4/5-inch across -- and reflexed sepals. The basal leaves are divided into 3 major, roundish lobes, each further cut or toothed; stem leaves are smaller and divided into narrow segments. The reflexed sepals are a good clue; R. sardous also has these reflexed, but it is an annual and lacks a cormose (bulbous) base. R. acris has normally spreading sepals, not reflexed.
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State RankSE
Global RankGNR
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B.A. SorrieRoadside and field, northern Moore County, April 2017. MoorePhoto_non_natural
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