Back
Buttercup family (Ranunculaceae)
Perennial with a short, scale-covered rhizome. Leaves three-lobed, entire, leathery, long-stalked; young ones silver with down, later glabrous, above dark green, below reddish. Some leaves evergreen. Flowers on leafless pedicels. Perianth single. Three ovate leaflets form false calyx. Flowers dark blue, more rarely violet-coloured or white, delicately scented. Achenes with an elaiosome representing attractive food for ants, which spread them. Flowers Mar.-May.
Grows on mesic, semi-fertile and fertile soils, in oak-lime-hornbeam forest, open oak woodland and mixed/coniferous forest. Simultaneously POISIONOUS and of medicinal value.
Descriptions devised by the team at the Independent Department of Forest Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, i.e. L. Witkowska-Żuk, K. Marciszewska, W. Ciurzycki, A. Obidziński and P. Zaniewski
