Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Notes: A native of Europe it is now naturalized in much of Eastern Minnesota down through the metro area counties plus a few counties in the SE Corner. The plant was included on Eloise Butler's early list of indigenous plants in the Garden area - she first noted it in her log on June 30, 1917 when she found one in bloom. Martha Crone included it on her 1951 Garden Census, she had planted the species in 1948. There are also native varieties of Buttercup in Minnesota, including 3 within the Garden, R. hispidus, R. abortivus, and R. recurvatus. R. acris is one of 16 buttercup species found in Minnesota. In North America R. acris is found throughout except for 7 states of the south central U.S.

Toxicity: Many of the species of Buttercup are poisonous and will severely irritate the skin. If taken internally the plant can cause stomach inflammation. R. acris has acrid and poisonous juices which can be fatal to browsing animals in the spring when the leaves are young and they eat a lot of them causing inflammation of the mouth and digestive tract; this is caused by the glycoside ranunculin. Cattle can be affected if they eat the plant but they normally refuse it which explains Eloise Butler's comment given below about being a pest of the hayfields. Milk from cows who have eaten the plant will have a bitter taste. When the plant is dried, however, the poisonous material evaporates. [Note: Ranunculin in moist plant tissue breaks down to the toxin protoanemonin, which is what causes the tissue damage. This has also been linked to the poisoning of bees who had taken in Buttercup pollen - see this article on bees - pdf. and this article on Ranunculin and Anemonol - pdf]

Legend: The legend of this plant family is this: Ranunculus, a Libyan boy who sang very beautifully, always wore green and gold silk. While singing in the woods, wood nymphs heard him and to get some peace and quiet, they turned him into a green and gold flower.

Eloise Butler Notes: On April 30, 1911, Eloise Butler published an article in Minneapolis Sunday Tribune in which she discussed Buttercups. Here is what she wrote:

"A number of the early flowering plants are members of the crowfoot family [Ranunculaceae -in current times this family is now called the Buttercup Family], [such] as the anemones and buttercups. In the divided leaves of a crowfoot, as some of the buttercups are called, the early botanists saw a resemblance to a bird’s foot. The buttercups of Minnesota are not so much in evidence as the tall European buttercup [Ranunculus acris L.] the pest of the hay fields - farther east.

One early species, Ranunculus abortivus, [Littleleaf Buttercup] has so small a flower that a novice would scarcely notice it, and is surprised to hear it named a buttercup. Neither would a child be likely to apply the time-worn test of holding the flower to your face to learn if you love butter. This lowly buttercup [her text omits the common name] blooms sparsely on the prairie with the pasque flower. The specific name rhomboideus [prairie buttercup] indicates the shape of the leaf. The low, tufted R. fascicularis [early buttercup] has a larger flower, but is not conspicuously massed. Our two prettiest buttercups are aquatics - one with shining, yellow petals; the other with smaller white flowers and long, railing stems; and both bearing finely dissected leaves.

The large Crowfoot family is without strongly marked characters. Its plants have usually an acrid taste; the leaves are generally more or less cut or divided; the corolla is often wanting, and, when this is the case, the calyx is colored like a corolla; the stamens are numerous; the pistils vary in number from one to several; and all the parts of the flower are distinct or unconnected." [Entire Article]