It is a common species in Europe and in Italy, where it favours the Alpine areas and the northern Apennines and, rarely, the central ones...
...(the specimens in the photos were found on the Monti della Laga, on the shady, damp slopes of Monte Gorzano).
COMMON NAMES
Botton d'Or, luparia, paparia, ranuncolo doppio, ranuncolo delle montagne
SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION
Family: Ranunculaceae
Genus: Trollius
Another flower of the mountain meadows is the Centaurea montana, or mountain cornflower.
Fact sheet
- Range and distribution
- It is a common species in Europe and in Italy, where it favours the Alpine areas and the northern Apennines and, rarely, the central ones (the specimens in the photos were found on the Monti della Laga, on the shady, damp slopes of Monte Gorzano).
- Ecology
It favours damp, clayey soils and fertile meadows. It finds its ideal habitat in areas that are not too sunny, near woods, in mountain areas between 500 and 2700 metres above sea level.
- Habit
When you come across it, it is easy to recognise. It is a perennial plant 20-40 cm tall, made up of a stem with widely spaced nodes, at whose insertion we find a few branches and leaves without a stalk. The flowers are borne on the striate stem.
- Leaves
Usually most of the leaves are found in the basal part of the plant; palmate in shape, they are borne on a stalk 10 to 15 centimetres long, unlike the leaves inserted on the nodes, which are sessile, that is, without a stalk. The palmate leaves have deep incisions along the main veins of the blade.
- Flowers and fruit
An intense yellow is the hallmark of these flowers, which bloom singly on a long stalk. At first sight it looks like a flower without sepals; in truth we are looking at one of the many wonderful modifications of nature.
The sepals are an intense yellow, while the true petals are tiny and enclosed inside the almost spherical structure formed by the sepals. They flower from June to August.
The fruit is made up of follicles containing numerous small black seeds.
- Uses
- This delicate and wonderful plant is moderately poisonous, and animals wisely keep well away from it. The substance in question, called protoanemonin, irritates the mucous membranes and the skin. As the plant dries out, protoanemonin turns into anemonin and loses its harmfulness. No particular uses are known, but because of its beauty, picking in the past came close to driving it to extinction. Today Trollius europaeus L. is a protected plant.
