Simple bugbane

Family Ranunculaceae. Native to Japan, Korea, and northeastern China. In forests, in damp shrub thickets, and on wet meadows.

Rhizome thick, many-headed. Stems up to 100 cm tall, glabrous to the base of the inflorescence, one or several from the rhizome, simple. Lower stem leaves on long petioles widened at the base, twice-ternate; terminal lobes 3-5 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm wide, on petiolules or almost sessile, oblong-ovate, more or less deeply pinnately incised, margins sharply and coarsely serrate. Flowers bisexual, in a simple terminal raceme, pubescent with simple and glandular hairs. Bracts broad, cuneate or ovate, almost membranous at the apex, entire. Differs from the previous species by its nodding inflorescences. Flowers in late August - September. In a cool summer it may not have time to flower, but it is ornamental for its foliage.

In cultivation only cultivars:

- "Armleuchter" - a plant distinguished by strongly branched flowering stems, twice-dissected leaves, white flowers;

- "Braunland" - with very dark, greenish-brown leaves;

- "Brunette" - a popular cultivar with purple stems (up to 1.8 m tall), dark brownish-purple leaves and compact inflorescences (up to 20 cm long), filled with white flowers with a purple tint;

- "Elstead" ("Elstead variety") - a cultivar notable for particularly late flowering with brownish-purple, bulb-like curved stems, white flowers opening from purple buds and wide, oval, dissected leaves;

- "Hillside Black Beauty" - a plant novelty with brownish-green leaves and white flowers, borne on strictly vertical flowering stems;

- "White Pearl" - a splendid cultivar with light-green twice-dissected leaves, sparsely scattered flowering stems and strongly curved, lush inflorescences of snow-white flowers emerging from green flower buds.