Ranunculus Species, Blisterwort, Hooked Buttercup, Hooked Crowfoot

Also called Hooked Buttercup, this plant gets a cute little yellow flower May - July. The upper leaves have a really cool look to them th...Read Moreat make this plant a favorite of mine. If you don't like them, they're very easy to pull out. Or pull out and re-plant in the woods like I do whenever I have to take one out. They're not aggressive and seem to co-exist beautifully with my native plant garden.

Native to Eastern North America. About 1- 1 1/2 feet tall. The preference is light to medium shade, wet to moist conditions, and soil with abundant organic material.

The Wood Duck, Ruffed Grouse, and Wild Turkey feed on the seeds and foliage of Ranunculus spp. (Buttercups) in woodlands. The Eastern Chipmunk also eats the seeds of these plants. Hoofed mammalian herbivores usually avoid the consumption of buttercups because the toxic foliage contains a blistering agent that can irritate the mouth and gastrointestinal tract. That said, I watched as a very pregnant woodchuck passed other plants by in search Hooked Buttercup (Ranunculus recurvatus) plants. She chowed down every Hooked Buttercup she came across, eating about half of each plant as she went. The nectar of the flowers attracts primarily small bees. These include Cuckoo bees (Nomada spp.), Halictid bees (Augochlorella spp., Lasioglossum spp.), and Andrenid bees (Andrena spp.).