Ranunculus, a little frog, because some species live near water.

Perennial. Open woods and rocky hillsides. New England, Ontario, Manitoba, south to North Carolina and Texas. Common in northern Ohio. April, May.

Roots

Thickened, fleshy-fibred.

Stems

Downy, generally low, six to twelve inches high.

Leaves

Dark green, long-petioled, cleft into three to five divisions; divisions stalked (especially the terminal one), deeply lobed, and cleft; lobes oblong or linear.

Flowers

Deep yellow, about an inch across.

Calyx

Sepals five, spreading.

Corolla

Saucer-shaped, of five obovate petals much longer than the sepals; each petal with a nectar-bearing pit and a scale at the base.

Stamens

Many, yellow.

Pistil

Many carpels, scarcely margined, tipped with a slender beak.

Fruit

Globular head of akenes; akenes flat, slightly margined.

Pollinated by flies. Nectar-bearing. Stamens mature before the stigmas.

Leaf of Early Buttercup. Ranunculus fascicularis

This is our earliest Buttercup - a fine, silky-haired woodland species growing from six to twelve inches high and blooming in dry open woods among the early spring flowers.

So early a Buttercup possesses a personal charm, as if in its own person it represented the coming summer, as indeed it does. The leaves and stems rise from fleshy roots, which explains their ability to swing into the race so early.