Perennial 7-25 cm high, with fibrous fleshy roots. Leaves all radical except a single (rarely few bract-l ike leaves) on the scape, glabrous, ± fleshy with long slender petiole, blade ternate with obovate-crenate, entire or 3-5-toothed segments, 12-25 mm wide. Bracts entire or 3-partite. Flowers solitary, c. 25 mm in diameter, yellow. Sepals 5, unequal, oblong-orbicular, obtuse to rounded, glabrous. Petals 5 (-8) obovate, twice as long as the sepals, becoming yellow-green and at last brownish to purple, tightly embracing the head of fruitlets. Carpels on a globose receptacle, 4.24.8 x 2.8-3.5 (according to Over. l.c.), rounded-obovoid, laterally flattened, with a scarious wing, especially ventrally, 2-veined, beak short, flattened, hooked.

Type: Mouni Sikaram, (Kurram valley) August 1855, Aitchison (K).

Distribution: Afghanistan, Pakistan.

Apparently a rare species, endemic to the mountains of the Kurram. Ovezinnikov, l.c., places this species in Ranunculus near Ranunculus platyspermus Fisch. but in a separate section Pachycarpus Ovez., although the persistent calyx is considered as the main distinguishing charater of Oxygraphis in his account as well. Under Oxygraphis he mentions that Freyn’s inclusion of the species in Oxygraphis is unfounded, and is based on an erroneous description by Aitchison & Hemsley. Oxygraphis shaftoanus was included in Oxygraphis by the authorities of the species and their description is correct.