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| Creeping Buttercup; Ranunculus repens L. |
Buttercup Family; RANUNCULACEÆ
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| Creeping Buttercup is an evergreen, fuzzy, perennial herb from the Old World. It is one of our most familiar wild plants; one that
nearly everyone knows by name. In greater Seattle it vastly outnumbers several other native and non-native kinds of buttercups. |
| Why is it so common and well-known? It contentedly grows in acidic, waterlogged muck or heavy gray clay. The dimensions it
reaches and vigor it displays in rich garden soil are wondrous to behold. It suffers no ill effect from deep shade, nor has ever been reported
sunburnt from too much exposure. The slender white roots tightly grip whatever soil they find within reach, and the stems eagerly lie down to
take root. An undisturbed patch can grow 21 inches tall and spread on and on. Even if mowed or otherwise mangled so its shiny yellow
flowers cannot set seed, still it rampantly creeps on with strength and persistence. |
| Thus it makes itself common by being an aggressive opportunist. And being such an indefatigable weed, as well as having such
pleasing bright flowers to contrast with its dull foliage, it makes its presence felt, to a degree matched by few weeds. |
| Its showy yellow flowers, three-forths to one-and-a-half inches wide, begin opening in April, peak during May and June, then
appear only sporadically after August. Each flower can make many seeds. The leaves, jaggedly cut in compound fashion, are always fuzzy and usually whitish-blotched. The plant juice is mildly bitter and acrid, and while this species of the genus is relatively innocuous, some of its cousins are rather poisonous. In any case, the toxin is zapped by boiling. Cooked buttercup greens are actually a dish enjoyed by some people, despite the bland flavor. |
English names include: Common Buttercup, Crowfoot, Creeping Crazy, Meg-Many-Feet, and Goldcups. In the Language of Flowers it signifies "riches." But the recommendation of one generally weed-tolerant gardener is: Kill on sight if it appears in your domains. It simply won't reasonably stay put and has insufficient value to be tolerated even if it would. Enough grows in ditches and wet murky corners that we needn't go far when we desire to admire its pretty yellow petals.
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Originally published as the Seattle Tilth newsletter Weed of the Month in June 1987, along with an illustration drawn by Jerri Geer.
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