Lesser Celandine
Lesser Celandine
Ficaria verna
A cheerful sight in early Spring, a glorious golden carpet of yellow in shady woodland glades
One of the first Spring flowers, opening to greet the Sun, Lesser Celandine is a low growing perennial herb in the Buttercup family
Found in early Spring in woods, gardens and hedgerows, with vibrant green kidney shaped leaves and brilliant star-like yellow flowers, almost as if painted with varnish. This plant is a great source of early pollen and nectar
William Wordsworth was a big fan of the flower and wrote three poems ‘The Small Celandine’, ‘To the Same Flower’ and ‘To the Small Celandine’
‘There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!
Other literary references include ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ by C.S.Lewis, when Aslan returns and turns Winter to Spring, Lewis describes the ground covered in every direction with yellow celandine flowers
It was once believed you could use Celandine to predict the weather as they open their flowers to the sun and close their petals to rainfall. The leaves are high in Vitamin C and have been used in the past to prevent scurvy