Warning That Lesser Celandine Poses a Serious Threat to Local Nature Preserves
To the Editor:
Blooming now in a yard near you, and probably in your own yard, is a pretty little flower that is big trouble. Lesser celandine, with its low mound of roundish leaves and yellow flowers, may look harmless when it first arrives in your yard, but be forewarned. Unless you remove or spot-spray those first few that show up, they will quickly spread to pave your lawn and garden beds, then spread into your neighbors’ yards as well. Unlike dandelions, which also begin blooming now, lesser celandine poses a serious threat to local nature preserves. Thriving in shade or sun, its poisonous leaves coat natural areas, displacing native wildflowers and cheating wildlife of food.
When I moved to Princeton 22 years ago, I first noticed lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) coating Pettoranello Gardens, then watched as it spread downstream into Mountain Lakes, turning a once diverse spring landscape into a monotonous yellow declaration of Me! Me! Me! Ever since, I’ve been sounding the warning on my PrincetonNatureNotes blog. People mistakenly called it marsh marigold — a native that is larger and exceedingly rare. More recently, lesser celandine has begun popping up in yards in the Little Brook neighborhood and just about everywhere else. It can spread via seeds and tubers, but primarily through bulblets that grow on its stem. These likely hitchhike from yard to yard on lawnmower equipment.
To dig the plant out, be thorough, removing every last tuber, and throw it in the trash, not the compost. Far easier and more effective is to spot spray with an herbicide that kills the root. Penn State Extension recommends Roundup, which can also be bought in a wetland-safe formulation online. For lawns, a broadleaf product like Aquasweep looks like a good option. It’s understandable to be queasy about herbicide use, and yet some are far safer than others. We ourselves take targeted, minimalist medicines of known toxicity to heal our bodies. Doesn’t nature deserve similar protection?
Lesser celandine also poses a threat to the tradition of sharing plants. A spring ephemeral, it fades back into the ground in early summer, and could easily hitchhike in the soil of garden plants given to friends. One neighbor brazenly sells lesser celandine-laced garden plants to unsuspecting facebook marketplace customers.
For many, lesser celandine’s rapid spread is a source of despair. But the good news is that proactive action in your yard, and even better a coordinated response by neighbors, can prevent a neighborhood from being taken over. Spot spray the green leaves each spring, then rest easy, knowing there will be fewer and fewer each year. With all the radical destabilization at work in the world, here’s a menace you can do something about.