TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: A sparsely to thickly pilose perennial 

 with slender fibrous roots, the steins 1-several, erect, neither 

 nodally rooting nor fistulose, 1-3 (4) dm. tall, mostly sparingly 

 branched; basal leaves with a petiole 3-8 cm. long, the blade 

 cordate, 1-3 cm. long, about as broad, pedately to irregularly 

 parted into 5-7 lobed (simple) main segments, transitional to the 

 upper stem leaves; cauline leaves alternate, becoming sessile 

 above and divided into (3) 5-7 linear lobes as much as 25 mm. 

 long; pedicels stout, up to 15 cm. long; sepals 5, spreading, 5-6 

 mm. long, pilose, soon deciduous; petals usually 5, yellow, more 

 or less obovate, 8-10 mm. long; nectary scale glabrous, forming a 

 small pocket at the base, the lateral margins adnate, spreading, 

 extending higher than the free upper margin; receptacle ovoid- 

 cylindrical, up to 8 mm. long in fruit, hairy; stamens mostly 25- 

 50; achenes 25-80, in a cylindric-ovoid cluster, rotund-obovate 

 in outline, somewhat compressed, nearly 2 mm. long, about half as 

 thick as broad, distinctly margined but not keeled, finely 

 puberulent to glabrate; stylar beak half as thick as broad, 

 distinctly margined but not keeled, finely puberulent to 

 glabrate; stylar beak half as thick as broad, distinctly margined 

 but not keeled, finely puberulent to glabrate; stylar beak 

 recurved, flattened, about 1 mm. long (from Hitchcock et al. 

 1964) . Verification of all Sweetgrass Hills specimens was 

 provided by Ron Hartman. 



LOCAL FIELD CHARACTERS: The Sweetgrass Hills population of 

 Ranunculus pedatif idus was initially taken to represent 

 Ranunculus cardiophyllus because it was encountered in July after 

 the diagnostic field characteristics were inconspicuous or 

 absent. Many of the achenes had dropped and the basal leaves had 

 withered. The following field characteristic text is modified 

 from the previous text on Ranunculus cardiophyllus . 



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 five 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 that has petals 0.2 or less long and 

 a short beak. The basal leaf outline is very different between 

 the two rare species, R. pedatif idus basal leaves being deeply 

 lobed to the base while R. cardiophyllus basal leaves being 

 entire with shallow lobes. Note: 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 withers by the middle of the growing 



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