Ranunculus repens
Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens )
The Creeping Buttercup ( Ranunculus repens ) is a species of the genus Ranunculus (Ranunculus ) in the family of the buttercup family ( Ranunculaceae ).
Description
The perennial herbaceous plant reaches heights of growth from 10 to 50 cm. The formation of creeping slopes that can take root at the nodes ( at the leaf base ), he received his name. The flowering period extends from May to August.
The leaves are ternate -pinnate, the leaflets columns or lobed and serrated irregular. The golden shiny flowers have a diameter of 2 to 3 cm and spring separately from the leaf axils. The perianth consists of yellow-colored nectar leaves and upright, the nectar leaves adjacent sepals. There shall be seeded nut fruits.
Within the species there are many copies that differ from each other in the sheet blank in the flower size and thickness of the hair. However, it is not possible to delineate on the basis of these characteristics clans lower rank or correlate them to specific locations.
The species is tetraploid, usually it has the chromosome number 2n = 32
Ecology
The Creeping buttercup is a Hemikryptophyt (half- rosette plant ) with streamers and often evergreen. It is rooted deep to 50 cm. For growth on wet soils its bark has large intercellular spaces. It is fast-growing - already one month after germination vigorous plants can be grown.
The flowers are homo game to vormännliche " nectar leading disk flowers ". They consist of five calyx-like tepals and 5 kronblattartigen nectar leaves with basal scale, under which the nectar gland is located. In addition to plants with hermaphrodite flowers and purely female plants come ( gynodiözisch =) ago. Pollinators are different insects. When it rains, the bowl-shaped flowers remain open, so that it collects water and finally the pollen can float to the scars. It has been shown experimentally that such rainwater pollination leads to seed set.
The flower arise as numerous fruits nutlets. The plant is a wind - and animal spreaders, also carried water detention and random dispersal by herbivores. Vegetative reproduction occurs by long, aboveground foothills of the strawberry type.
Toxicity
With about 0.01 % protoanemonin in the herb of Creeping Buttercup is only considered slightly toxic.
Occurrence
You can find the Creeping Buttercup used in pioneering companies in fields, fallows and gardens, on the banks, ditches and paths, in meadows and riparian forests. It prefers at least temporarily wet, stony, humus-containing or raw clay and clay; He also goes on compacted soil and tolerates even flooding. In the mountains it is found up to an altitude of about 2400 m above sea level. After Ellenberg he is a humidity indicator and a Ordnungscharakterart the tansy - White bentgrass Kriechrasen ( Agrostietalia stoloniferae ).
The natural range includes Europe, Asia and North Africa; within North America, Australia ( Tasmania ), New Zealand and even in Antarctica Creeping Buttercup the introduced.
For farmers and hobby gardeners of Creeping Buttercup is considered a troublesome weed. He drives in all directions streamers bewurzeln periodically at the nodes and develop Tufts undergraduate leaves. Thus, large areas can be coated with this plant in a short time.