The flora of Périgord in South-West France is abundant and diverse. In this blog you can find, in pictures, brief encounters with several hundreds of wild flowers and plants as they grow here in French Perigord. Following the seasons other species are added. An index of scientific and English names you find below on the right.

Corine Oosterlee is a botanist and photographer and she offers guided Botanical Walks and other activities around plants and vegetation in nature in Perigord. Do you want to know more? On www.baladebotanique.fr you can find more information. For Corine's photography see www.corineoosterlee.com. Both websites also in English.

Enjoy!




January 19, 2021

Bulbous Buttercup

Many plants make rosettes at ground level in autumn. They take some risks, because the leaves should not freeze. Bulbous Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) does not fear frost; a concentration of sugars in the sap protects them. 

 

And if some leaves die and disappear, no problem, the plant will make new ones. 

As its name says, Bulbous Buttercup makes a bulb, just where the rosette leaves are attached the roots thicken. If you dig a bit you'll find a kind of turnip about the size of a marble.



In spring the plant develops and now you see its flowers. They look just as the flowers of other Buttercups. But this one likes dry and poor soil, like here in a limestone meadow.

 


 

A bit of dew and you can see this plant is a bit shaggy, especially the sepals, yellow and folded back against the stem when in flower.  Like with many Buttercups, the leaves of the rosette and lower on the stem are different from those under the flowers.

 



 

 

In the center of a ring of petals and a ring of stamina, both very yellow, you can see the fruits beginning to develop.