Settle Wildflowers 36 - Yellow 8 - Buttercups - Hay Meadow 2

Hi, I had a request for Hay Meadow Plants.

I'll do Buttercups - They are making the fields golden today.
  
(Really good Hay meadow fields from a conservation point of view have 20 or maybe 40 other species of flowering plant and sedge as well as buttercups, as well as many grasses.. I'll come to some of those species in future posts. Just buttercups alone doesn't make it a good meadow)

Did you know there are  three common species of buttercup?  (beyond the Goldilocks Buttercup already mentioned back in woodland in April)

Become a Buttercup buff:

1. Creeping Buttercup Ranunculus repens
2. Meadow Buttercup: Ranunculus acris
3. Bulbous Buttercup: Ranunculus bulbosus 

1. Creeping Buttercup

Location: Round the edge of the field and where it is damper and where the soil has been exposed due to some sort of erosion; And on road verges
These have stolons - creeping shoots, so can spread quickly to colonise exposed soil, wet areas etc.

You can recognise them because
The central leaflet of the leaf is on a stalk
The sepals point upwards and the flower stalk is ribbed.
The petals in my view are a deeper gold and slightly bigger than the other two species.
It is the only one of the three that eventually grows creepers.

Creeping Buttercup sent in from Long Preston by C Sampson

Creeping Buttercup

2. Meadow Buttercup:
This grows in the main part of the fields and on road verges.

You can recognise them because 
The central leaflet is not on a stalk, the whole leaf looks more palmate. 
The sepals point upwards and the flower stalk is more slender and is not ribbed



3. Bulbous Buttercup:
This is much less common than the two above. It like the drier part of the field. If there are ridge and furrow in a field it grows on the ridges. It is common in our limestone fields.

You can recognise them because 
Its leaves are small and neat and grow in a neat rosette - and if you were to did it up they would be bulbous: The central leaflet of the leaf does have a very short stalk so it can look a little like Creeping Buttercup
The sepals point downwards. the flower stem is ribbed. 





Good luck buttercup hunting.