California buttercup

Ranunculus californicus, the California buttercup, is a perennial herb in the Ranunculaceae family endemic to western North America, ranging from southern British Columbia and Washington through Oregon and California into Baja California. It grows in chaparral, oak woodlands, grassy slopes, coastal scrub and along stream banks from sea level into the Sierra Nevada foothills. The plant arises from a short woody caudex and tuberous to fibrous roots, producing several erect to ascending, branched, sparsely hairy stems 20 to 70 centimetres tall. The basal leaves are long-petiolate, ovate to orbicular in outline and deeply ternately or palmately divided into three to five segments which are themselves lobed and toothed; stem leaves are smaller and more deeply dissected. Flowers are borne singly on slender peduncles and are bright shiny yellow with seven to twenty-two narrowly obovate, glossy petals about 6 to 14 millimetres long, numerous yellow stamens and a central cluster of green carpels. The fruit is a head of small, flattened, beaked achenes with a hooked tip. Two varieties are recognised, var. californicus and var. cuneatus.