White buttercup-like flowers with yellow centres float across a pond in sheets, above two kinds of leaf — lobed floaters and hair-like submerged ones
Water-crowfoot, Ranunculus aquatilis.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Water-crowfoot
Native · flowers May–Sep · ponds, ditches, streams and chalk rivers
Ranunculus aquatilis — Ranunculaceae
A water buttercup whose white, yellow-centred flowers float in sheets on ponds, ditches and slow streams in late spring and summer. It has two kinds of leaf: rounded, lobed ones that float and finely cut, hair-like ones below. The name covers a group of similar species, of which common water-crowfoot is the best known.
How to spot them
- ▸White, buttercup-like flowers about 2 cm across with five petals and a yellow centre, floating or held just above the surface
- ▸Two leaf types: floating leaves rounded with three to seven lobes, and submerged leaves cut into many thread-like segments
- ▸Grows as mats in ponds, ditches and slow streams
- ▸Look-alike: river water-crowfoot (Ranunculus fluitans) has only long, thread-like submerged leaves and no floating ones
- ▸Look-alike: white water-lily has far larger flowers and undivided floating pads
How to know it
Belongs to the buttercup family, but flowers white and grows in the water with its leaves cut into many thread-like segments
Water-crowfoot, Ranunculaceae.
Flowers from May to September, forming spring and summer mats in ponds, ditches and streams
Water-crowfoot, per the Wildlife Trusts.
The English name refers to the supposed resemblance of the leaf to a bird's foot
Water-crowfoot — crow's foot.
A group of similar white-flowered aquatics, some of which are known only by their leaves, of chalk streams and ponds
Water-crowfoots, Ranunculus subgenus Batrachium.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family
- •Wildlife Trusts: common water-crowfoot flowers May to September, flowers about 2 cm across, 10 to 50 cm high
- •A single species name hides a difficult group: several similar water-crowfoots occur, and hybrids are frequent
- •Floating leaves have three to seven lobes; submerged leaves are cut into many hair-like segments — a classic example of heterophylly
- •Forms mats of white flowers in ponds, ditches and streams in spring and summer
- •Native, and widespread in Britain
- •The genus name Ranunculus means 'little frog', for the wet habitat of many species
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common water-crowfoot