RANUNCULACEAE (CROWFOOT FAMILY) 



157 



Seed-time : Late June to August. 



Range : Nova Scotia to Virginia. On the Atlantic Coast an immi- 

 grant from Europe, but several varieties are native in the West 

 and the South. 



Habitat: Moist meadows and pastures, roadsides, waste places. 



Where this plant is plentiful it is likely to monopolize a large 

 amount of space ; for after the early bloom is past its energies are 

 devoted, for the remainder of the grow- 

 ing season, to throwing out numerous 

 slender runners, one to three feet long, 

 from every joint of which a young plant 

 may take root. The roots are fibrous 

 and tufted; the stem is about a foot 

 high, and hairy, but often only slightly 

 so ; the runners also are usually hairy at 

 the base, the leaves on veins and peti- 

 oles. Leaves three-parted, all three 

 segments usually, and the terminal one 

 always, with a footstalk ; all irregularly 

 cut and toothed, often blotched with 

 white. Flowers bright golden yellow, 

 nearly an inch broad, the petals ob- 

 ovate, much longer than the spreading 

 sepals. Fruits in globose heads, the 

 achenes flattened and having a thin mar- 

 gin and a stout, bent beak. (Fig. 107.) 



FIG. 107. Creeping But- 

 tercup (Ranunculus repens). 

 X*. 



Means of control 



Its manner of growth causes the weed 

 to form patches, which, if not too many 



and too large, may be cleaned out with the hoe, of course before 

 the first seed is developed. Ground too rankly overspread to be 

 so -cleansed should be put under cultivation for a season. 



BULBOUS BUTTERCUP 



Ranunculus bulbbsus, L. 



Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: May to July. 

 Seed-time: July to October. 



