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Buttercup family (Ranunculaceae)
Perennial with below-ground, horizontally spreading runners. Stems of heights 15-25 cm, with two flowers, more rarely one flower on long pedicel. Three stem leaves, located in upper half of stem, are almost sessile, digitate, with 3(5) fingers. Flowers yellow, of diameter 2-4 cm, with perianth segments most often 6 in number, with fluffy down externally. Fruit is compound, formed from hairy achenes of lengths 5 mm or less. Flowers III-V.
Grows on moist, fertile soils. Appears on forest floor in early spring, in oak-lime-hornbeam forest, especially of low type, as well as in riparian forest. Contains POISONOUS ranunculine.
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.
