Celeryleaf Buttercup (Ranunculus sceleratus)
- Family: Buttercup (Ranunculaceae)
- Flowering: May-August.
- Field Marks: This buttercup is recognized by its smooth, nearly succulent stems and leaves and its elongated fruiting clusters.
- Habitat: Around ponds, along streams, swamps, sloughs.
- Habit: Annual or sometimes perennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Erect, hollow, fleshy, branched, smooth or rarely hairy, up to 2 feet tall.
- Leaves: Basal and alternate, or crowded and seemingly opposite, palmately lobed or divided, the lowermost somewhat fleshy, smooth, up to 4 inches long and often as broad.
- Flowers: Many on stalks from the axils of the leaves, yellow.
- Sepals: 5, green, free from each other.
- Petals: 5, yellow, up to 1/4 inch long, usually shorter than the sepals.
- Stamens: Numerous.
- Pistils: Numerous, each with a superior ovary.
- Fruits: Clusters of achenes in cylindrical heads up to 3/4 inch long and up to 1/2 inch broad; each achene yellowish, smooth, obovoid, about 1/20 inch long, with a minute beak.
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