Ranunculus japonicusThunb.

WFO wfo-0001129303 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Repina Tatyana
fig. a Repina Tatyana, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-05-23 / obs. 131215429
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by 國立臺灣博物館
fig. b 國立臺灣博物館, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 80167163
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Repina Tatyana
fig. c Repina Tatyana, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112505350
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Bruce Calvert
fig. d Bruce Calvert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9303640
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Yoshimasa Uchiyama
fig. e Yoshimasa Uchiyama, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 68902302
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Repina Tatyana
fig. f Repina Tatyana, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131215419
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by 國立臺灣博物館
fig. g 國立臺灣博物館, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 80167150
Ranunculus japonicus, photographed by Viola Alekseeva
fig. h Viola Alekseeva, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198013091

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 21 botanical countries

Regions where Ranunculus japonicus is native: Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Japan, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Korea, Kuril Is., Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Primorye, Sakhalin, Taiwan, Tuva, Yakutiya, Laos AmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastChitaInner MongoliaIrkutskJapanKamchatkaKhabarovskManchuriaPrimoryeSakhalinTaiwanTuvaYakutiyaLaos KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Ranunculus japonicus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Amur AMU ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kamchatka KAM
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Kuril Is. KUR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Primorye PRM
Sakhalin SAK
Taiwan TAI
Tuva TVA
Yakutiya YAK
Laos LAO ASIA-TROPICAL

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 36 in flower of 45 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Ranunculus japonicus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 36 of 45 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 26 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Ranunculus acris subsp. japonicus (Thunb.) Hultén
  • Ranunculus acris subsp. nipponicus (H.Hara) Hultén
  • Ranunculus acris subsp. novus (H.Lév. & Vaniot) Vorosch.
  • Ranunculus acris var. japonicus (Thunb.) Maxim. ex Makino
  • Ranunculus acris var. japonicus (Thunb.) Maxim.
  • Ranunculus acris var. schizophyllus H.Lév.
  • Ranunculus coreanus H.Lév.
  • Ranunculus crucilobus H.Lév.
  • Ranunculus grandis Honda
  • Ranunculus grandis var. grandis
  • Ranunculus grandis var. typicus Hara
  • Ranunculus hsinganensis Kitag.
  • Ranunculus japonicus f. latissimus (Kitag.) Kitag.
  • Ranunculus japonicus var. japonicus
  • Ranunculus japonicus var. latissimus Kitag.
  • Ranunculus labordei H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Ranunculus novus H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Ranunculus paishanensis Kitag.
  • Ranunculus paishanensis f. oreodoxa (Kitag.) Kitag.
  • Ranunculus paishanensis var. oreodoxa Kitag.
  • Ranunculus subcorymbosus subsp. grandis (Honda) Tamura
  • Ranunculus subcorymbosus var. grandis (Honda) Kitag.
  • Ranunculus subcorymbosus var. ovczinnikovii Tamura
  • Ranunculus transochotensis Hara

and 2 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.