Buttercup, Creeping

Information on Creeping Buttercup

Common Name: Creeping Buttercup
Scientific Name: Ranunculus repens
Irish Name: Fearbán (reatha)
Family Group: Ranunculaceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


Click for list of all flowering by month
Creeping Buttercup could sometimes be confused with:

Buttercup, Bulbous, Buttercup, Meadow,

This is the Buttercup with the amazingly tenacious root system which gardeners abhor. Its creeping runners enable it to spread extensively through lawns and other parts of the garden.  However, just look into its beautiful shiny 5-petalled yellow flower and forgive all.  It is distinguished from other very similar members of the family Ranunculaceae by its root system and its spreading sepals. Its hairy leaves are triangular with three lobes.  A perennial, it flowers from May to August and is a native plant

I first identified this plant in Dundrum, Co Dublin in 1955 and I photographed it in Gibletstown, Co Wexford in 2005.

If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre

Young children have long placed a buttercup flower under another's chin and if the yellow was reflected back to the underside of the chin, then that person was deemed to like butter.

 'Buttercups and daisies,
Oh, the pretty flowers;
Coming ere the springtime,
To tell of sunny hours.'

                                  Mary Howitt  1799 - 1888

Buttercup, Creeping
Buttercup, Creeping
Buttercup, Creeping