Ranunculus-chius_5

Description:

Ranunculus chius DC, syn.: Ranunculus incrassatus Guss.Eastern Buttercup, DE: Chios HahnenfuSlo.: napihnjena zlaticaHabitat.Dat.: April 24. 2015Lat.: 45.06876 Long.: 14.44834Code: Bot_0867/2015_DSC5895Picture file names: from Ranunculus chius_raw_1 to Ranunculus chius_raw_5.Habitat: a small, newly established figs trees plantation; flat terrain, sunny and dry place; calcareous, skeletal ground, exposed to direct rain, elevation 80 m (260 feet), average precipitations 1.000-1.200 mm/year, average temperature 13 - 15 deg C, Sub-Mediterranean phytogeographical region.Substratum: Karst soil.Place: Fields on the right side of the road from Milohni village to Vela Jana harbor, west Krk island, Kvarner bay, Adriatic Sea, Croatia EC.Comment: Ranunculus chius, named after Greek island Chios, is an inconspicuous, rather small, annual buttercup plant seldom encountered. This is probably due to its mall, inconspicuous flowers, its hiddenness among other greenery in grassland and also because it is nowhere a common plant. It is a species of a Mediterranean-eastern European distribution with a rather sparse and erratic distribution. It usually grows in wet meadows and in temporary pools, from sea level to lower montane elevations. Habitat of this find is in a sharp contradiction to this. The plant is toxic due to the content of anemonine.There are many buttercups described, but Ranunculus chius is relatively easy to recognize. Not by its flowers, which may have from 3 to 5 developed petals, but by its swollen fruiting pedicels thickened toward the apex (see Fig. 1b). Its achenes are also characteristic. They are dark brown when fully developed and are densely covered by short prickles. One can see these prickles starting to develop on Fig. 2b, which shows young, not yet ripe achenes.Ref.:(1) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007), p 143.(2) W.K. Rottensteiner, Exkursionsflora fr Istrien, Verlag des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins Krten (2014), p 798.(3) dryades.units.it/stagnisardi_en/index.php?procedure=taxon... (accessed Jan.27. 2019)(4) www.cretanflora.com/ranunculus_chius.html (accessed Jan.27. 2019)