Ranunculus asiaticus Butterfly Dione® - Persian Buttercup

Ranunculus asiaticus Butterfly™ Dione® offers a brilliant, fresh, and luminous flowering in spring. This Persian buttercup from the Butterfly™ series is not quite like the very double buttercups we know well. Its flowers are more open, finer, and more mobile too. Their soft yellow colouring, with hints of gold and orange, captures the light in a unique way. It is a very beautiful variety for cut flower arrangements, pot displays, and seasonal borders.

This plant belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. The species Ranunculus asiaticus, called the Persian buttercup, florist's ranunculus, or garden ranunculus, is a tuberous perennial that grows, flowers, and then enters dormancy when the heat becomes more pronounced. In the wild, it is found in a vast area ranging from the eastern Mediterranean to the Near East, notably in Cyprus, the eastern Aegean islands, Greece, Crete, Turkey, Lebanon-Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and as far as western Iran. It grows in open, often stony environments, on light and well-drained soils, with mild winters that are wetter than the summer. It is hardy down to -5°C at the least in well-drained soil.

Butterfly Dione® is a creation from the Japanese breeder Aya Engei. Like other cultivars in the Butterfly™ series, it is characterised by well-branched stems, several flowers per stem, a more flexible habit, and remarkable vase life. The petals have a fine waxy coating that makes them shine and extends their lifespan. Dione® forms an upright clump of 45 to 55 cm in height and 25 to 35 cm in width within a few months. In a pot, it generally remains a bit more compact. The deciduous foliage develops first as a basal clump. It is bright green, deeply cut, with a finely lobed appearance somewhat like parsley. The flowering stems are long, firm, and good for cutting. Flowering occurs from April to June, depending on the climate and planting date. Each stem bears several buds and then several yellow flowers, 5 to 7 cm in diameter, that are single to semi-double.

Butterfly Dione® can be used in sunny borders, spring pot displays, and small cut flower beds. Its sunny colouring pairs well with cream tones, pale yellow, soft apricot, or light green. You can pair it with double early tulip ‘Verona Sunrise’, daffodil ‘Pueblo’, light and delicately scented, the variegated spurge Euphorbia polychroma ‘Variegata’, and with Briza maxima, whose mobile spikelets lighten the whole composition. This display will be very elegant from early to mid-spring.

The florist's ranunculus has been cultivated for a long time around the Mediterranean basin and has secured a lasting place in the art of floristry, where it remains appreciated for its finesse and long-lasting quality.