Summer pheasant's-eye

Adonis aestivalis is an erect annual herb of the Ranunculaceae family, growing 20 to 60 centimetres tall, with a slender, simple or sparingly branched, glabrous stem. The alternate leaves are sessile or short-petioled, two- to four-times pinnately divided into very narrow, almost thread-like ultimate segments 0.5 to 1 millimetre wide, giving the foliage a feathery, finely dissected appearance reminiscent of fennel. Solitary terminal flowers, 1.5 to 3.5 centimetres across, are borne on slender peduncles at the tips of the branches and consist of five to eight glossy, bright scarlet to vermilion (occasionally yellow) petals, usually marked with a dark blackish spot at the base, surrounding a central cone of numerous dark-purple stamens and pistils. Flowering extends from late spring through summer. The fruit is a dense, cylindrical head of small, ridged, wrinkled achenes. Native to Europe, the Mediterranean basin and central and western Asia, the species grows as an arable weed in cereal fields and on calcareous waste ground, and has declined in many parts of its range.