Species
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Ranunculus ficaria Walter, 1788

Ranunculaceae

Climate known 1 photograph
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Ficaria verna, commonly known as lesser celandine or pilewort, is a low-growing, hairless perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It has fleshy dark green, heart-shaped leaves and distinctive flowers with bright yellow, glossy petals. Native to Europe and Western Asia, it is now introduced in North America, where it is known by the common name fig buttercup and considered an invasive species. The plant is poisonous if ingested raw and potentially fatal to grazing animals and livestock, such as horses, cattle, and sheep. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Ficaria verna”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Ranunculus

Ranunculus is a large genus of about 1750 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots.

Text from Wikipedia, “Ranunculus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Ranunculaceae
Described by
Walter, 1788
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Føroyar +115
Wild records
1663 in range· 1534 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
808mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 76 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and May to August in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 808 mm a year, wettest July at 76 mm, driest April at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -10.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and May to August in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (573 mm of 808 mm) takes 8 months, October to January and May to August. Mean temperature moves 17.3 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to February and April to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 808 mm a year, wettest July at 76 mm, driest April at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

808 mm a year at the habitat, 573 mm of it October to January and May to August. Wettest month July at 76 mm, driest April at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 637 mm to 1053 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 3, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -10.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -10.4 °C, the absolute minimum -21.7 °C, about 93 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -1.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -3.3 °C to 0.2 °C), warmest day 22.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -10.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 4 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 808 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1184 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -21.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 31.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost31.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)-21.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 4–34RH 59–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1184 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C4 / 2–55 / 4–69 / 7–1113 / 12–1518 / 16–1920 / 19–2223 / 21–2522 / 21–2518 / 17–2014 / 12–158 / 7–94 / 3–6
Night °C-1 / -3–0-1 / -3–01 / 0–34 / 3–59 / 8–1012 / 11–1314 / 13–1514 / 13–1511 / 10–127 / 6–83 / 1–4-0 / -2–1
Rain mm69 / 48–9455 / 40–7865 / 48–8750 / 41–7369 / 56–9674 / 58–9376 / 61–9772 / 56–9265 / 51–8870 / 52–9769 / 52–9874 / 55–108
DLI5 / 4–811 / 9–1418 / 16–2127 / 26–3033 / 32–3534 / 33–3633 / 32–3628 / 27–3119 / 18–2212 / 11–156 / 5–94 / 3–7
RH %67 / 64–7065 / 62–6762 / 60–6459 / 58–6159 / 58–6159 / 58–6159 / 57–6159 / 57–6262 / 60–6465 / 63–6768 / 65–7069 / 65–71

Each figure is the median across the 1184 grid cells holding the 1662 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 815:3742 (49.225, 7.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -21.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -10.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1184 distinct grid cells holding the 1662 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 815:3742 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 49.00_6.875, lapse-corrected +41 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 318 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Føroyar, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Baleares, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Assam, East Himalaya, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Myanmar, Aleutian Is., Alaska, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Labrador, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker50.214, 7.997 · in the densest population, 697 records (42% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1663 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1534 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 4 km away. 19 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1663 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Ranunculus ficaria, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Wild plants used for food by Hungarian ethnic groups living in the Carpathian Basin
Andrea Dénes, Nóra Papp, Dániel Babai, Bálint Czúcz (2012) · Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae
Hedera helix L.
Daniel J. Metcalfe (2005) · Journal of Ecology
The clonal dynamic in wild and agricultural plant–pathogen populations
Linda M. Kohn (1995) · Canadian Journal of Botany
Ranunculus Ficaria L. (Ficaria verna Huds.; F. Ranunculoides Moench)
K. Taylor, Beryl Markham (1978) · Journal of Ecology
Ranunculus Ficaria Linn.: life-history and pollination.
E. M. Marsden-Jones (1935) · Journal of the Linnean Society of London Botany
Comparison of allelopathic effects of five invasive species on two native species
Kendra Cipollini, Megan Greenawalt Bohrer (2016) · The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society
Disturbance of the herbaceous layer after invasion of an eutrophic temperate forest by wild boar
Jörg Brunet, Per‐Ola Hedwall, Emma Holmström, Emmelie Wahlgren (2016) · Nordic Journal of Botany

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Ranunculus 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 24 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.