In 1881 botanists John and Sara Lemmon were collecting and botanizing in an area called Rucker Valley in the Chiricahua Mountains. And, they were staying at a military camp called Fort Rucker. I mention this because the old Fort Rucker site is very close to where Ms. Mesquitey and I were hanging out. I was so excited …well, I still am… to identify the same buttercup that John and Sara collected over 140 years ago. And, maybe in the same woodland we were in the day of our buttercup discovery.
Lemme see…There were wild buttercups in fields and yards when I was a kid in Kentucky, so I’m guessing that’s what sparked my grey matter when I saw the buttercup in the woods. And everyone seems to know the little ritual of putting the reflective yellow flower under someones’ chin to see if they like butter. I don’t know about the butter part, but the reflective qualities of the petals are of interest to researchers. You could look it up.
Oh, the genus Ranunculus…the Latin suffix unculus is the diminutive, so; rana is frog and the suffix unculus makes it a little frog.
The photos are mine and taken on the day described in this episode.
