Burning Bush
When not in flower – and sometimes even when it is flowering – the Common Baneberry often goes unnoticed on the forest floor. The leaves might lead the lay observer into mistaking this plant for a member of the carrot family.
Burning Bush grows in the hornbeam/oak forest belt, chiefly in limestone soils. It is particularly abundant in Pubescent Oak woods, and is also found in forest margins, woodland clearings and thermophilous thickets on sunny southern slopes. Its general distribution is Eurasian, but it is unknown in Britain.
Woolly Crowfoot even grows in firm non-shifting screes in ash/maple stands with Moonwort (Lunaria rediviva), Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), Common Baneberry (Actea spicata), and Wood Goatsbeard (Aruncus sylvestris); not known in Britain.
Woolly Crowfoot is one of several hundred species of the genus Ranunculus distributed mostly in the northern hemisphere. It is a perennial herb, up to 70 cm high, and with a short rhizome. The stem is erect and branched, and the basal leaves are stalked and characterized by three broadly ovate lobes.
Burning Bush is a perennial herb with a stout, branching, almost woody rhizome. The sturdy erect stem is covered with striking black glands at the top. Glands are also present on the flower stems, on the sepals, on the reverse of the petals, the filaments of the stamens, stigmas, and capsules. Susceptible people may experience an unpleasant allergic reaction if the ndular stems come into contact with their skin.
Baneberry differs from the closely similar Bugbane (genus Cimicifaga), which grows mostly in eastern Europe, as to period of flowering. It flowers in May to June, whereas the flowers of Bugbane are not seen until late summer or early autumn.
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