This little native perennial is a delight in early spring

LESSER Celandine is an early spring delight. Ficaria Verna, a beautiful little member of the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, magically morphs a grassy bank to a blissful golden yellow. But like all its relatives, Lesser Celandine is a keen spreader.

As I’ve seen in my garden, this low-growing native perennial grows in damp, but not soggy places. Its mostly basal leaves which often emerge in autumn have long petioles, are dark green and often have pale markings.

The little flowers, the stars of the show, follow later this month and in March.

What charmers they are with bright shiny yellow flowers, looking very like buttercups. The backs of the petals may be streaked bronze or greenish and the blooms often appear quite different, with varying numbers of petals, ranging from 7 to 12. Doubles can occur and were commented on back in the 17th century.

Both my orchard and a fruitcage on a grassy bank sloping down from the kitchen garden to the burn are transformed. The little ‘host of golden celandines’ are a pure delight for a few spring weeks.

Then overshadowed by taller neighbours, these little buttercups take a graceful bow and disappear for the rest of the year. The orchard offers a fresh caste of flowers like orchids and a range of wild grasses. Meanwhile the fruitcage settles down to its monthly mow.

Lesser Celandine is very welcome in specific parts of the garden, but can readily overstep the mark. It spreads to a nearby strawberry patch, snuggles up against some rasps or slips off into a tattie bed.

There are four subspecies of Lesser Celandine, all looking very similar. They’re distinguished from each other by their preferred reproduction tactics. Broadly, there are 3 strategies: by seed, bulbils or tubers.

Some specimens concentrate on the normal seed production. Each seed is protected in separate little fruits that become hard. Others focus primarily on producing tiny bulbils that form in leaf axils and they spread easily.

The third tactic is another nightmare for harried gardeners. Celandines produce tiny tubers, rather like potatoes. When you shake the plant while weeding, these little tubers fall back into the soil. You can scarcely see the tiny miscreants. Despite being an enthusiastic composter, I would never recommend composting

Lesser Celandine.

These tubers gave Lesser Celandine the old name of pilewort, so unsurprisingly it was hopefully used to cure haemorrhoids. As with so many of these old remedies, it was the power of faith, not medicine, that would have done the trick.

Unbelievably, there’s evidence that people actually ate these tiny tubers. At an excavation on Oronsay, south of the Hebridean island of Colonsay, archaeologists found charred remains of tubers and bulbils of Lesser Celandine. Although all Ranunculaceae, including Lesser Celandine, are poisonous, heating breaks down the dangerous chemical, protoanemonin, making the plant safe to eat. I let my ducks dine on pea-sized tatties, so can’t see myself howking for these little fellas.

The natural diversity in shape, leaf and flower colour has been a magnet for gardeners. People have dug up and moved especially attractive plants and either gave them a prominent place in a bed or even potted them up to enjoy at close quarters.

Plant breeders have been equally enthralled, producing many cultivars that are now available to gardeners. They range from the charming variegated single orange Ficaria verna ‘Anita’ to the less appealing purple-leaved double F. Verna ‘Sylvia’. It’s worth remembering that doubles provide no nectar for pollinators. This is a worry very early in the year when hungry bumblebee queens are starting to emerge.

There are four subspecies of Lesser Celandine