(A) Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) is, as per its name, a creeping plant. The stem is prostrate, creeping along the ground and striking new roots from the junctions of the leaf and flower stems with the main one. The flowers are large and broad-petalled, both the petals and stamens being a deep shining golden yellow. This species is indigenous in the West, but probably introduced from Europe in the East, where it is found chiefly near the coast, in ditches or along the edges of marshes.
(B) Common Buttercup; Crowfoot (R. acris) (European). Even though we have quantities of native Buttercups, it is this handsome foreigner that is the most abundant; this is the species that is found in fields everywhere, the one that delights the little folks and figures in many of their childish games.
The leaves and stem of the Crowfoots are very acrid, but not poisonous; on this account they are shunned by cattle and horses. This accounts in part for their abundance in most fields and pastures.
(A) Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum polygamum) is one of the characteristic plants of swamps and edges of streams. Should its neighboring plants be three or four feet high, we find the plume-like flowers of this species triumphantly waving above them on stems of five, six, or even seven feet tall.
The stalk is rather stout and grooved, pale-green, stained with maroon. The long-stemmed leaves are many times compounded into small, lobed leaflets of a pale, dull, blue-green color. The flowers are in feathery clusters; each individual flower having numerous white filaments, no petals, but usually four or five early-falling sepals.
From June to September we may find the mist-like flowers of Meadow Rue in swamps, from Labrador to Manitoba and south through the United States.
(B) Pasque Flower (Anemone patens) has a solitary erect flower with five to seven purplish sepals. Leaves divided and cut into narrow, acute lobes. Both stem and leaves covered with silky hairs. This species is found on prairies from Wis. and Montana southward.
