Lesser Celandine, Ficaria verna is perhaps at its peak at the moment. More than 200 years ago Gilbert White noted that the average first flowering around Selborne, Hampshire was 21 February. I saw my first before Christmas and in the Wye Valley it was well in flower on sunny banks in January.
The name celandine derives from the Greek chelidon, a swallow. There may have been a confusion with the Greater Celandine, no relation and a member of the Poppy family, which begins to flower in May, but perhaps it was named as just a hopeful sign of spring.
Wordsworth certainly saw it as a welcome sign of Spring and wrote three poems about it. He wrote of its "glittering countenance" and there is now the science to explain this. I am indebted to the resources in the Researchgate pdf (link below) for explaining in terms I think I could understand why this flower and buttercups glitter.
The petals have a thin epidermis filled with yellow carotenoid pigments and deeper layers containing starch granules. The epidermis acts as a film which reflects light and the starch layer enhances the brilliance, the two combined creating a gloss effect.
The effect attracts pollinators, including queen bumblebees searching for early nectar. Pollen beetles mainly visit to eat the pollen but assist with pollination. The Lesser Celandine plant group does not entirely rely on insects for reproduction, however. This subject is complicated. I hope I can cover it by saying there are some subspecies that produce bulbils in the leaf axils. These scatter across habitats, rapidly colonising. Some gardeners warn about unwittingly spreading them while weeding them out. What? Unwittingly spread?
In addition, the root tubers can create new plants and colonise disturbed soil in woodland tracks, ditch banks. Here they stretch for miles on the banks of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal near Abergavenny.
Given the ways this plant can spread it is no surprise that it is so abundant.
While on the subject of roots and tubers it was noted by ancient herbalists that the tubers resembled piles. It was used to treat them and it was given the name Pilewort. The Doctrine Of Signatures, created in the 17th and 18th centuries by commercial herbalists, endorsed this traditional remedy and promoted it as a treatment for haemorrhoids. The Doctrine decreed that all plants had been signed by the Creator with a physical clue to their medicinal qualities. Marketing is not a modern phenomenon!
Moving swiftly on!
Leaves are heart-shaped, glossy, veined and usually patterned in light and dark green. The flower is solitary. There are numerous stamens. Eight to ten petals are most typical though I found examples of between seven and twelve last year. I have seen mostly eight this year and here is an eleven.
However, as the FirstNature website says petal counting is a sad hobby I'll move swiftly on again!
Wordsworth considered the Lesser Celandine his favourite flower. Listing, and perhaps passing over pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, primroses and violets he wrote three poems about it. I quote a few lines from To a Small Celandine (1802,1807)
There is a flower that shall be mine,
'T is the little Celandine.....
Spring is coming, thou art come!...
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love.
Man of good taste, Wordsworth. The final note is sad, however. He wanted the "Little, humble Celandine " carved on his tombstone. He got the blousy Greater Celandine. Stonemason wasn't a botanist!
As ever thanks for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it and it brought a smile to your face.
Acknowledgements
Richard Mabey Flora Britannica
Harrap's Wild Flowers
Stace 4
Wild Flower Key Rose
Online research included
https://www.first-nature.com/
https://www.researchgate.net/
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/celandine-the-delicate-flower-harbinger-of-spring-which-wordsworth-thought-more-beautiful-than-daffodils-212412
https://Wildflowerfinder.org.uk
Brilliant article, thanks Anne! Serious research there...
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