Ranunculaceae (ra-nun-kew-LAY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Leaves usually compound or lobed
- Flower parts in indefinite numbers
- Petals freely attached
- Stamens usually numerous
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Generally herbaceous annuals and perennials, with some woody climbers and shrubs
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets) and palmately lobed, or ternately compound (divided into 3 leaflets)
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem) or opposite (2 leaves at each junction with stem)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) in many forms
- Generally bisexual and radially symmetric
- Petals freely attached
- Parts in indefinite numbers, a trait of simple, primitive flowers
- Stamen (male flower part) usually numerous
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is a follicle (a dry, multi-seeded pod that opens on one side), achene (a single-seeded, dry fruit that does not split open), or berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall)
Notes
- Approximately 1,700 species worldwide
- Includes columbine, anemone, larkspur, monkshood, and clematis
- Many species used as ornamentals and a few are sources for medicinal drugs
- Some species highly toxic
- Scientific name from its largest included genus Ranunculus, from the Latin rana, “little frog,” as many species grow in wet places
- Represented by 11 species at Edgewood
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
