Downy buttercup

Ranunculus lanuginosus is a robust herbaceous perennial of the buttercup family growing 30-80 cm tall from a short, oblique rhizome with fibrous roots. The entire plant is conspicuously covered with long, soft, spreading hairs giving it a distinctly woolly appearance, particularly on the stems and petioles. Basal leaves are long-petioled, palmately divided into three broad, rhombic-cuneate lobes, each coarsely toothed or further lobed at the apex; stem leaves become smaller and more deeply divided upward. The branched, hairy stems bear large, bright golden-yellow flowers 2-3 cm across with five glossy, broadly obovate petals and five spreading sepals. Numerous yellow stamens surround a head of beaked achenes that mature into a globose aggregate fruit with hooked beaks. Native to moist deciduous woodlands, shaded streamsides, and mountain meadows of central and southern Europe, it flowers from May to July.