Cinquefoil

That would make sense that its part of the potentilla species! Also known as tormentil here. maybe as it is low lying and spreading away from the leaves and across the ground on runners you could start with creeping cinquefoil/creeping tormentil (potentilla reptans).

Debbie, I think it is the same as this one http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/128... which is also unidentified.

Wikipedia and google dont seem to have very reliably labelled species on them I find but it is the shape/colour of the leaves and also the colour of the stem (red not green) that don't look like any of the yellow ranunculuae nor the crowfoots, marsh marigolds or celandine! The leaves and stem colour look more like a false rue anemone or similar species as the leaves split more than 3 times whereas in the true buttercups none of the species leaves have more than 3 sections to their leaves (yours seems to have 6) apart from the meadow one (which you chose) but that is feathered not solid like yours is. Maybe if Eulalia sees it she can help but i'm pretty sure it isnt meadow buttercup.

Just looked here http://www.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http:... at R. sardous and the leaves appear very different to mine and another picture shows the sepals lying down against the stem of R. sardous. That said, I know little about flowers, I was hoping Eulalia would pick up on it as she knows Spanish flowers of this area very well.

Hi Malcolm, Just to help narrow your species down there are only two species that Im aware of that have their sepals turned downwards as seen on your spotting, all others 'hug' the base of the petals. These are bulbous (r.bulbosas) and hairy (r.sardous) buttercup, I think its unlikely to be bulbous as it favours dry grasslands and grows to about 30cm whereas hairy favours damp grasslands, sea coasts and clay based soils. The name hairy is usually quite misleading too.