I’ve been watching this clump of dark, mottled heart-shaped leaves, wondering how a cyclamen got into the watermeadow. I held off identifying it until it flowered. Then fat yellow buds appeared on single vertical stalks. The fat yellow buds had dark purply-yellow outsides to the petals. I started research and anticipated Lesser Celandine.
Lesser Celandine loves the damp – ditches, stream banks and damp woodland, shady spots in gardens, hedgerows, and meadows. They flower between January and April – bright yellow stars with eight-twelve slim petals. The leaves have purple stalks with a groove running down them.
They are a perennial, but this was the first time I’ve noticed them, perhaps because the clump was nestled well down amongst the old, dead grass, and in past years I haven’t ventured down to the watermeadow in the winter. Also, I have now seen a second clump of similar leaves next to one of the pathways and possibly a third spindly clump under the decking.
Ficaria means ‘fig’ and another name for the Lesser Celandine is Fig Buttercup.
