Cursed Crowfoot (Ranunculus sceleratus) The native Cursed Crowfoot or Celery-leafed Buttercup is found growing in moist or wet soils and shallow water, including swamps, bogs, and ditches, throughout the United States from April through the summer.
This plant, growing to two feet tall, produces three eighths inch, five petaled yellow flowers with a prominent central oblong to spherical shaped green seed head, surrounded at it's base by multiple (twenty or more) stamens . The yellow petals turn white and disappear as the fruit matures. The basal leaves are smooth and three lobed.
Although this plant has some medicinal qualities, the Cursed Crowfoot is very poisonous and can cause serious skin irritation and inflammation or sores on skin and serious inflammation to the mouth and tongue if chewed or swallowed. This plant is said to have been used by Native Americans to poison arrow points. This plant is also poisonous to cattle.
Sceleratus: From the Latin word meaning polluted.
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