FLOWER OF THE MONTH

Sunbursts of lesser celandines.

Wordsworth wrote famously of the daffodil, but it was a smaller, more reticent yellow flower that truly captured his poetic heart.

“There is a flower that shall be mine, ‘T is the little Celandine.”

We have two flowers with the name celandine, the greater and lesser, though they are neither closely related nor strikingly similar in appearance – save the yellow of their flowers. Wordsworth’s inspiration was the earlier-flowering lesser celandine, whose heart-shaped leaves are among the first greens to slip between the tired pastels of late winter. They keep a low profile away from the bite of the wind, and often go unnoticed until the flowers unfurl. And on a cold February morning, the narrow, pointed petals shine like the midsummer sun. The lesser celandine draws the attention of pollinating insects, though the plant is more likely to reproduce through its root tubers, which develop as the plant photosynthesises. These store energy during winter, enabling the plant to grow so early in the year. The shape of the tubers has been likened to a bunch of figs, hence the Latin name ficaria, whereas in the late Middle Ages, another similarity was noted. The doctrine of signatures was widespread, suggesting a plant could be used to treat the body part it resembled. This led to the naming of flowers such as eyebright, lungwort and hedge woundwort. The tubers of lesser celandine were considered to resemble haemorrhoids and the plant was applied accordingly, becoming popularly known as pilewort.