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Ranunculaceae family

Fig Buttercup Ranunculus ficaria

Early-season nectar — Flowers in a late-winter / early-spring window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable early forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).

Fig Buttercup is an introduced perennial herb, found in Canada and the lower 48 states. It blooms Mar – May.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Fig Buttercup is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Part of why it adapts so well: Fig Buttercup is a polyploid complex — multiple chromosome races are on record (2n = 16, 24, 32, 40). Spare genome copies give a plant extra raw material to evolve fast, and polyploidy is a documented correlate of successful plant invasions (te Beest et al. 2012). A labelled association from open cytology (ChromoDB), not a prediction for your specific site.

Mockernut Hickory
Native
Mockernut Hickory
Carya tomentosa
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Hairyfruit Chervil
Native
Hairyfruit Chervil
Chaerophyllum tainturieri
●●●○○
Virginia Plantain
Native
Virginia Plantain
Plantago virginica
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Swamp Dock
Native
Swamp Dock
Rumex verticillatus
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Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 6 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Mar – May — 193 obs · USA-NPN — Nature's Notebook (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~8 caterpillar species

Ranunculus supports ~8 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Ranunculus in North America, including:

Clepsis persicana · White Triangle Tortrix Cnephasia longana · leafroller moth Melanchra adjuncta · Hitched Arches Papaipema nebris · Stalk Borer Sparganothis sulfureana · Sparganothis Fruitworm
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host · 89 bee visitors

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Ranunculus is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →

89 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Fig Buttercup — the 12 most-recorded:

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee Bombus terrestris · Buff-Tailed Bumblebee Bombus lapidarius · bumble bee Bombus pascuorum · Common Carder Bumblebee Bombus hypnorum · bumble bee Andrena dunningi · Dunning's Andrena
+ 6 more bees →
Chelostoma florisomne Halictus rubicundus · sweat bee Bombus pratorum · bumble bee Colletes inaequalis · Unequal Cellophane Bee Lasioglossum laevissimum · sweat bee Osmia cornuta · mason bee
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024. Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 58 birds · 2 mammals · 28 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Fig Buttercup — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

28 adult butterfly & moth species are recorded nectaring at its flowers — the most-recorded:

Pieris rapae · Small White Polygonia c-album · Comma Aglais urticae · Small Tortoiseshell Pieris napi · Green-Veined White Gonepteryx rhamni · Common Brimstone Lycaena phlaeas · American Copper
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (18) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[10] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[12] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[16] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[17] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[18] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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