Buttercups, buttercups, all in the sun (From Durham Times)

Buttercups, buttercups, all in the sun

4:15pm Friday 25th June 2010

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WE TAKE many of our wildflowers for granted, not sparing a moment to stop and look.

Some of them are truly beautiful; forget-me-nots and speedwells are favourites of mine, but the small, delicate flowers definitely need a close-up view.

However, one of most abundant and widespread wildflowers can occur in such profusion it is impossible to overlook. I drive past a field on my way to work, a horse-grazed pasture that wouldn’t interest a botanist, but at this time of year it positively glows with a vibrant yellow profusion of buttercups.

There are two species providing this spectacle, the meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris) and the creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens). The meadow buttercup is tall and skinny, an adaptation to compete with other plants in the meadow by pushing the flowers above the crowd.

The leaves are deeply toothed, giving a sharp pointed almost snowflake-like shape.

The creeping buttercup does as described and has stems that run along the ground. The leaves are more rounded and have three lobes – if you are trying to picture it, think celery (to confuse things there is a species called the celery leaved buttercup but it is primarily a wetland plant).

The proper way to tell the creeping and meadow apart is the flower stalk. Creeping buttercups have grooved stalks, meadow buttercups not grooved. You might also come across the bulbous buttercup, usually on limestone soils, which as well as a grooved flower stalk has sepals that curve downwards from the petals.

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