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Hooked Buttercup (Ranunculus recurvatus)

• Family: Buttercup (Ranunculaceae)
• Flowering: May-July.
• Field Marks: This usually hairy species has small, yellow petals about as long as the sepals, and all leaves lobed or divided.
• Habitat: Damp woods, around ponds and lakes, along streams.
• Habit: Perennial herbs with short rhizomes.
• Stems: Erect, usually unbranched, with spreading hairs, up to 1 1/2 feet tall.
• Leaves: Basal and alternate, usually 3- or 5-parted with each part often divided again, hairy.
• Flowers: 2-several in short racemes, yellow, about 1/2 inch across.
• Sepals: 5, green, free from each other, hairy, up to 1/3 inch long, pointing downward.
• Petals: 5, yellow, free from each other, about as long as the sepals.
• Stamens: Numerous.
• Pistils: Numerous, free from each other, smooth.
• Fruits: Rounded or slightly elongated heads of minutely beaked achenes; each achene flat, about 1/10 inch long, with a minute, hooked beak.