Okay, this cinquefoil is similar to the previous one, but each leaf has three leaflets instead of five. Also it’s non-trailing and has a fuller fancier flower with green calyx lobes showing between the petals. What makes it “rough”? Perhaps the hairy stems. Rose family. Photo: May 28, 2013.
Rough Cinquefoil (Potentilla norvegica)
Maybe we should do a comparison of all the little yellow flowers out there, to help keep them straight! They’re all different! This is a trailing vine, kind of like a wild strawberry plant. It has compound leaves with 5 toothed leaflets — cinquefoil is an anglicized version of cinq feuilles (French for five leaves). It has 5 petals on the blossom. The blossom grows on a long stalk from the axil. Rose family. Photo: May 27, 2013.
Common Cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex)
Member of the Mustard family. Blooms all summer. “Historically” used to make a medicinal tea. Several moth and butterfly varieties lay eggs on them. Native to Eurasia.
Common Winter Cress, Yellow Rocket, Bittercress, Wound Rocket (Barbarea vulgaris)
They are wild and native to eastern and midwest North America. Poppies produce latex, and in Celandine Poppies, it’s a bright yellow sap that was used as a dye by Native Americans.
Wood Poppy, Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)
Sessile means sitting or resting on the surface — these have sessile leaves, which means the leaf comes directly out of the main stem, but the leaf itself has no stem of its own. Lily family. Native. Photo taken May 3, 2013.
Sessile Bellwort, Wild Oats (Uvularia sessilifolia)
Native to Europe, introduced to North America in the 1860s as an ornamental, and now, a harmful invasive that has really colonized Charles River Peninsula. Forms a dense ground cover. Tiny flowers that start lime-green and yellow, and age to red. Poisonous sap.
Cypress Spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias)
I’ve seen this two places this year, both times with its feet in the water. The foliage is bad-tasting and toxic, and thus avoided by mammalian herbivores. (I just like to say mammalian herbivores.)
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)
From AF Lorie, I heard about a citizen science enterprise called Project Budburst, which is loads of people picking a few plants to monitor, and inputting the data on their website to be compiled and charted. I picked forsythia and red columbine in my own yard (pictured), and the assignment is to note when they leaf, flower, etc., to help understand the effects of climate change. Phenology: the study of the timing of seasonal biological events like migration, mating, flowering, budburst.
Last year I misidentified these as Marsh Marigold. Now I have better resources, and I know that Marsh Marigolds don’t have this many petals. So based on the number of petals (8-12) and the heart-shaped variegated leaves, it’s Lesser Celandine (to distinguish from Celandine, a larger wild poppy). They follow the sun during the day and close in cloudy or cold weather. The name Celandine is derived from the Greek word for swallow (chelidon), because the early flowering time was also when the swallows arrived. (Last year we spotted these March 22… so… 3 weeks later this year.) Buttercup family.
Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria)
