Buttercup Family [Ranunculaceae] |
status
flower
morph
petals
type
stem
toxicity
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
A garden plant growing to 1m which sometimes escapes into the wild, but not in this case, it is still in a garden, but possibly escaped from someone else's garden to here. |
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
The flowers have 4 small petaloid sepals, which are concolorous with the stamens - one can be seen far right near the top. |
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
All that is immediately visible are the numerous brightly-coloured stamens. |
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
Several yet to open flowers still wrapped up in the 4 sepals lurk near the bottom of the photo. |
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
The flowers can be mauve, pink, lilac or white, here verging more towards lilac than mauve. The filaments of the stamens are concolorous with the anthers, mauve-lilac, but unusually are wider than the anthers. |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
Before they open the flowers are minuscule (far right) but grow larger (top) before beginning to open (still small - just south of top) until the thin purple filaments have grown very long (bottom left). |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
The filaments are purple and very long; tipped by a partly-flattened and slightly wider paddle-shaped anther which is of a deep-pink hue surrounded by a halo of white pollen grains. |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
In the centre are rear-views of the 4 striated purple sepals which enclose the elongating styles. |
8th June 2016, a garden, Devon. | Photo: © Rebecca Stanton |
The leaves are 2 to 4 ternate and blue-green. They are typically slightly asymmetrical, as are the leaves of other Meadow-rues. They have zero lobes, or 3 or 5 lobes, but sometimes with an aberrant lobe making some of the leaves asymmetrical. |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
The leaves are in opposite pairs as are the branches. |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
Both branch-pairs and leaflet-pairs are angled slightly forwards. |
7th June 2017, a garden near The Burrs, Bury, Lancs. | Photo: © RWD |
Leaf stalks are also angled slightly upwards, although the leaves themselves try to keep more or less horizontal. The stalk junctions are coloured purple. Leaves have a faint and irregular net-vein patterning. |
Easily mistaken for : other Meadow-rues but this one has purple flowers Some similarities to : Columbine (Aqelegia vulgaris) [the leaves are similar and it is sometimes known as 'Columbine Meadow-rue'] but then it does live in the same family (Ranunculaceae) but not in the same Genus. Uniquely identifiable characteristics Distinguishing Feature :
No relation to : Rue or Goat's-Rue (Galega officinalis) nor Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) nor to Meadow-Foam (Limnanthes douglasii) or Like all Meadow-rues it is likely to be toxic.
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Thalictrum | aquilegiifolium | ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ | Ranunculaceae |
Thalictrum (Meadow-Rues) |
Buttercup Family [Ranunculaceae] |