Western buttercup

Ranunculus occidentalis Nutt. (Ranunculaceae) is an erect perennial herb of moist meadows, grasslands, and open conifer woods across western North America from Alaska south to California and east to Montana, growing 20–70 cm tall from a short caudex with fibrous roots. Stems are usually branched above and sparsely to densely covered with spreading or appressed hairs. Basal leaves are long-petiolate and deeply three-parted into broadly ovate, coarsely toothed or further lobed segments 2–6 cm wide; cauline leaves are similar but smaller and short-petiolate to sessile upward. Flowers are solitary or in small open cymes on long peduncles, bright glossy yellow, 1.5–2.5 cm across, with usually five obovate petals each bearing a small basal nectar scale, and five reflexed sepals. The fruit is a small head of flattened, beaked achenes 2.5–3.5 mm long.