Ranunculaceae and Papaveraceae

Ranunculus repens vs Stylophorum diphyllum

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 3 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 3x by our model Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Ranunculus repens, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ranunculus repens

Creeping buttercup
Stylophorum diphyllum, photographed by Jeff Clark
fig. b Jeff Clark, CC BY 4.0

Stylophorum diphyllum

Celandine Poppy

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Stylophorum diphyllum Ranunculus repens 3 of 19 (16%)

Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Ranunculaceae versus Papaveraceae. Different families, which is a real separation.
Genus Ranunculus versus Stylophorum.
Flowering Peaks in June versus April. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 3,859 and 1,623.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages