tall, fistulose, copiously pilose to occasionally glabrate; basal 

 leaves with stout petioles 2-12 cm. long, the blades cordate, 

 (1.5) 2-6 cm. long and nearly or quite as broad, deeply crenate 

 to shallowly lobed and narrowly toothed, pilose, gradually 

 transitional to the more-deeply lobed, shorter-petiolate, 

 alternate cauline leaves and the sessile, deeply 5- to 7-parted 

 bracts; pedicels (2) 5-14 cm. long; sepals 5, yellowish, 

 spreading, 6-10 mm. long, pilose, quickly deciduous; petals 5, 

 yellow, 8-15 mm. long; nectary scale about 1 mm. long, the 

 lateral margins adnata the full length and forming a pocket, the 

 upper free margin truncate, conspicuously ciliate; receptacle 

 ovoid, up to 12 mm. long in fruit, hairy; stamens 35-75; achenes 

 20-100 in an oblong cluster, obovate in outline, 1.5-2 mm. long, 

 somewhat compressed, about half as thick as broad, finely 

 puberulent and often somewhat reticulate, inconspicuously 

 margined, the stylar beak slender, 0.6-1 mm. long, nearly or 

 quite straight (from Hitchcock et al. 1964). Verification of all 

 Sweetgrass Hills specimens was provided by Ron Hartman. 



LOCAL FIELD CHARACTERS: There are eight non-stoloniferous, 

 upright species of buttercup that have been collected or observed 

 in the Sweetgrass Hills (Appendix C) . Five of them have basal 

 leaves which are not compound, including Ranunculus pedatif idus , 

 R. cardiophyllus , R. eschscholtzii , R. inamoenus and R. 

 abortivus . Only the latter species of these four has 

 inconspicuous petals shorter than 3,5 mm long and which are 

 smaller than the sepals; the two rare species have conspicuous 

 petals. The R. eschscholtzii is distinguished in being nearly 

 glabrous, and is most readily confused with R. pedatif idus . The 

 Ranunculus inamoenus is distinguished in having basal leaves 

 which are rounded to cuneate at the base compared with R. 

 cardiophyllus and R. pedatif idus . as well as having petals 0.2- 

 0.8 mm. long with a long achene beak, as compared to R. abortivus 

 with petals 0.2 or less long and a short beak. The basal leaf 

 outline is very different between the two rare species, C. 

 'cardiophyllus basal leaves being entire with shallow lobes, and 

 R. pedatif idus basal leaves being deeply lobed to the base (see 

 figures 8, 11). Note that this is the only distinguishing 

 characteristic between the two species easily discerned in the 

 field. The basal leaf (ves) can be found on most plants through 

 the time of flowering, but they wither by the middle of the 

 growing season. The achene characteristics of the two species 

 differ in that R. cardiophyllus has a finely puberulent achene 

 with a straight beak, while R. pedatifidus has a glabrous achene 

 with a curved beak. The technical characteristics described in 

 Dorn (1984) which distinguish R. cardiophyllus from R. 

 pedatifidus is the ciliate nectary scale of R. cardiophyllus as 

 opposed to the glabrate nectary scale of R. cardiophyllus . 



27 



