Ranunculaceae : Crowfoot Family

Scientific Name:

Kingdom: Plantae

Divisions:

• Tracheophyta (vascular)
• Spermatophyta (seed bearing)
• Angiospermae (enclosed seeds)

Class: Dicoteldonae (two seed-leaves)

Family: Ranunculaceae

Genera: 9

Species: 30

Aconitum delphinifolium (Monkshood)

Actaea rubra (Red Baneberry)

Anemone drummondii (Many-headed Windflower)

Anemone multifida (Cut-leaf Windflower)

Anemone narcissiflora (Narcissus Windflower)

Anemone parviflora (Arctic Windflower)

Anemone richardsonii (Yellow Windflower)

Aquilegia brevistyla (Small-flowered Columbine)

Caltha natans (White Marsh-marigold)

Caltha palustris (Yellow Marsh-mariglod)

Delphinium glaucum (Tall Larkspur)

Pulsatilla ludoviciana (Prairie Crocus)

Ranunculus abortivus (Small-flowered Buttercup)

Ranunculus aquatilis (Water Buttercup)

Ranunculus cymbalaria (Northern Seaside Buttercup)

Ranunculus escholtzii (Buttercup)

Ranunculus flammula (Creeping Spearwort)

Ranunculus gelidus (Gray Leaved Buttercup)

Ranunculus gmelinii (Small Water Buttercup)

Ranunculus hyperboreus (Arctic Buttercup)

Ranunculus lapponicus (Lapland Buttercup)

Ranunculus macounii

Ranunculus nivalis (Snow Buttercup)

Ranunculus pedatifidus

Ranunculus pygmaeus (Dwarf Buttercup)

Ranunculus sceleratus (Celery-leaved Buttercup)

Ranunculus sulphureus (Sulphur Buttercup)

Thalictrum alpinum (Alpine Meadow Rue)

Thalictrum sparsiflorum (Few-flowered Meadow Rue)

Thalicrum venulosum (Veiny Meadow Rue)

English Name(s):

Crowfoot Family

Description:

• Plants herbaceous (not woody) with colourless acrid juice.
• Life cycle of all our species is perennial.
• Leaves alternate on the stem, lacking stipules (appendages) but often with petioles (stalks) dialated at base.
• Flowers perfect (bisexual), regular in symmetry or zygomorphic.
• Sepals 3-many, are often petal like.
• Petals 3-many or none.
• Stamens (male parts) numerous.
• Pistils (female parts) 3-many, each with a superior ovary and a spur (hook) at the top of each.
• Fruits vary from genus to genus.

Natural History:

• Plants of this family have retained many of the ancesteral charactaristics of the earliest flowering plants.
• The Buttercups are considered very simple because the floral parts (petals, sepals, stamens, and pistils) are all of an indefinite number and separate from one another. More advanced plant families have fewer more specific numbers of floral parts and the parts are ofetn fused together.

Family Size:

World:

Genera: 35-70

Species: 2000

North America:

Genera: 23

Species: ?

Yukon:

Genera: 10

Species: 45

Aconitum (Monkshood)

• All species of this genus contain the alkaloid aconitine and others making them all poisonous.
• Flowers are symetrically zygomorphic.
• Fruit is a follicle.

World= 275

N.A.= 8

Yukon= 1

Central Yukon= 1

Actaea (Baneberry)

• All parts of these plants, but especially the roots and berries, contain poisonous glycosides or essential oils.
• Fruit is berrylike.

World= ?

N.A.= ?

Yukon= 1

Central Yukon= 1

Anemone (Windflower)

• Stem usually one with a whorle (circle) of leaves just below the solitary flower.
• Leaves basal and petioled (stalked) with the exception of the whorl of leaves just below the flower.
• Petals are lacking, sepals are coloured and petaloid.
• Fruit is a dry achene.

World= 120

N.A.= 25

Yukon= 5-6

Central Yukon= 5-6

Aquilegia (Columbine)

• Basil leaves bi-ternate in shape.
• Cauline (stem) leaves are alternate.
• Flowers solitary or several, showy, in terminal racemes.
• Floral parts in 5s.
• Fruit are 5, many seeded, follicles per flower.

World= 70

N.A.= 23

Yukon= 2

Central Yukon= 1

Caltha (Marsh-marigold)

• Low, soft-stemmed, glabrous (hairless) plants.
• Leaves simple, petioled, cordate or reniform in shape.
• Sepals petaloid (petal-like); petals none.
• Fruit is a several to many carpeled (chambered) follicle.

World= 20

N.A.= 3

Yukon= 3

Central Yukon= 2

Delphinium (Larkspur)

• From thick subligneous (sub-woody) fibrous, much-branched, rhizomes (rootstock).
• Leaves palmately lobed or cleft.
• Flowers in terminal raceme, blue or purple.
• Sepals 5, petal-like; upper sepal prolonged backward into a spur.
• Petals 4, irregular in symmetry.
• Fruit is a follicle, few per flower, with black angled or winged seeds.

World= 300

N.A.= 63

Yukon= 2

Central Yukon= 1

Pulsatilla (Prairie Crocus)

• This genus was split off from Anemone (Windflowers).
• Fruit is an achene.

World= ?

N.A.= ?

Yukon= 1

Central Yukon= 1

Ranunculus (Buttercup)

• Plants have a bitter juice.
• Leaves mainly basil and petioled (stalked).
• Leaf blades variously dissected, usually different in shape and cut from the mostly sessile cauline (stem) leaves.
• Flowers yellow or less often white, 1 to several, on long pedicels (stalks).
• Sepals and petals mostly 5.
• Stamens mostly many.
• Pstils 5-many, each with a single ovule.
• Fruit a shperical or oblong head of variously beaked achenes.

World= 400

N.A.= 81

Yukon= 21

Central Yukon= 15

Thalictrum (Meadow Rue)

• Leaves alternate on stem, or basal, glabrous (hairless), bi-ternate or tri-ternately compound.
• Flowers small, in panicles or racemes.
• Flowers perfect (bisexual) or dioecious (unisexual).
• Fruit are grooved or ribbed, seed-like, achens.

World= 120

N.A.= 21

Yukon= 5

Central Yukon= 3