By Andrea Laine, NC State Extension Master Gardener (SM) volunteer of Durham County
A fellow Extension master gardener recently brought this cheerful-looking plant to my attention. Its common names are lesser celandine or fig buttercup. (Scientific name is Ficaria verna and was formerly Ranunculus ficaria.) She spotted it blooming in March on the Ellerbe Creek and also beside the Eno River at Penny’s Bend, an area known for extraordinary native flora. However, this plant is not native to the the Southeast nor even to North America. It is an aggressive, exotic, invasive species that threatens to displace our beloved native spring ephemerals.
Lesser celandine is a herbaceous perennial that emerges earlier than most native species. Additional identifying characteristics are:
- A basal rosette of dark kidney- or heart-shaped leaves;
- A bright yellow flower blooms on a single stalk that rises eight to nine inches above the leaves;
- Small bulbets borne in the leaf axis.
- Abundant fig-shaped tubers form along the roots; Even when separated from the parent plant, the tubers can produce a new plant.
- An overall tight low-growing mat that rapidly chokes out neighboring seedlings.
- It grows best in moist, shady soils like those in a river’s floodplain.
Supporting its rapid growth are three ways the plant can reproduce: by the tubers/root fragments, by seeds, or by the bulbets. Any of these methods can form a new plant in the vicinity of the parent or be carried downstream to begin colonizing in a new location.
Complicating matters of identification is that lesser celandine looks very much like marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) which is native in North Carolina and enjoys similar growing conditions. The two can be distinguished by the number of petals on the flower (typically eight for lesser celandine and five for marsh marigold) and the appearance of the leaf margin (smooth for lesser celandine and serrated for marsh marigold).
Like many invasive plants, this one was introduced commercially as an ornamental plant. It became popular in the Northeast, but its status is in transition. It appears on the The North Carolina Native Plant Society invasive plants list as a “significant threat.” Yet it is absent from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s list of noxious weeds in North Carolina. That list reports that it is absent/unreported in N.C. and S.C., however according to the South Carolina Native Plant Society, it is banned in S.C.
Exotic plant species that essentially grow too well in an area negatively impact a local ecosystem by crowding out the native plants. Insects, birds and animals native to the area depend upon native plants for nutritional sustenance and preferred habitat.
If your property offers the ideal growing conditions for lesser celandine or marsh marigold and you appreciate diversity in your landscape, keep an eye out for an expanding patch of low-growing plants with bright yellow flowers. If it turns out to be lesser celandine, feel free to remove it. If you locate it on land you do not own, say while you are enjoying a public park or private nature preserve, you may bring it to the property owner’s attention, but you do not have the right to remove it. The patch recently found at Penny’s Bend Nature Preserve has been removed, and the patch on Ellerbe Creek was sprayed by a licensed herbicide applicator. It was linked to a larger patch growing behind a house just a couple blocks upstream on a feeder creek.
Resources and Additional Information
https://scnps.org/education/citizen-science-invasive-fig-buttercup
Factsheet: http://www.docs.dcnr.pa.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_010251.pdf
https://www.ncwildflower.org/plant_galleries/invasives_list
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RAFI
NCSU suggests planting Geum as an alternative: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/all/geum-spp/
About Marsh Marigold: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/all/caltha-palustris/
Article Short Link: https://wp.me/p2nlr1-1s
