Studying some Aspects of Biology and Morphology of Root Tubers and Seeds of Ranunculus ficaria L

Ranunculus ficariais L. (Fig buttercup or Lesser Celandine) is an herbaceous perennial belongs to Ranunculaceae (buttercup family) that behaves as a ground cover. It is a spring ephemeral that grows from a cluster of tuberous roots in late winter or early spring. It has glossy, dark green (sometimes slightly mottled), fleshy leaves on long petioles, and cordate to oblong-cordate in shape. The margins can be entire or wavy (1, 28). Flowers 15-60 mm in diameter, solitary at the end of each stem branch. Flowers have 3 sepals (rarely more), 3 petals, bright, pale to golden yellow, very rarely orange, shining on inside, receptacle concave, with short, pale simple glandular hairs. Achenes either abortive or maturing in a globular cluster, when mature 2•5-5•0 x 1•7-3•5 mm, more or less globular or obovoid, usually with few to numerous very short simple glandular hairs. This invasive weed spreads primarily by vegetative means through abundant tubers and bulblets, each of which can grow into a new plant once separated from the parent plant. The prolific tubers may be unearthed and scattered by the digging activities of some animals, including well-meaning human weed pullers, and spread to new sites during flood events (28). This weed has two subspecies, R. ficaria Subsp. ficaria and R. ficaria Subsp. bulbilifer that the second is probably the only subspecies of mountainous regions in many areas. It is an abundant weed of lawns and gardens, where it spreads rapidly and is very difficult to eradicate. According to our observations probably R. ficaria spread by tubers from mountains to fields that near to mountains in Lorestan province of Iran. The Aim of this study was assessment of this weed to improve its management practices in the wheat fields.
In order to study the some aspects of biology and morphology of tubers root and seeds of R. ficaria , two experiments were conducted at Laboratory of Gorgan University in 2011. For breaking root tubers dormancy, root tubers incubated for different storage time (7, 14, 21 and 28 days) and different storage temperature (2, 4 and 8˚C). To evaluate the effect of tuber size, six groups (very small