Celandine* (Chelidonium majus), a member of the poppy family (Papaveraceae), is an immigrant to these shores. It was probably brought here by early European settlers for medicinal uses -- "everything from gall bladder problems to removing warts," according to A Guide to Enjoying Wildflowers by Donald and Lillian Stokes -- and escaped from cultivation to become naturalized in damp roadsides and garden edges, including our own. Growing four feet tall, this multi-stemmed specimen broke off at the base as we grabbed the aerial parts and pulled. Reaching for a weeding tool to root out the parts that were still stuck in the soil, we stopped short at the sight of the saffron-colored lifeblood of the doomed plant bubbling up and oozing from the stump.
Weeding can be unnerving for the excessivly empathetic gardener with an overactive imagination, especially when a large, hardworking plant with a fighting Yankee spirit like Celandine must be given the ax. Though not a native, this hardy perennial put down roots in New England way back when and grows here -- uncultivated -- year round, sprouting leafy rosettes during the winter and sending up tall stalks bearing clusters of yellow flowers that bloom all summer, from April to September. Ordinarily these uninvited guests are unobtrusive -- charmingly ornamental in an old-fashioned kind of way -- and we let them stay, but they're having an especially good year this spring and were crowding out the "legitimate" plants, so they had to go.
Broken end of stem (left) oozes plant juices of a color so brilliant and a consistency so thick and glistening that it caused the same fight-or-flight, pit-of-the-stomach, gut reaction one gets at the sight of blood gushing from a wound.
Even plucking up the tiny seedlings sprouting between the bricks of the terrace tore at our heartstrings -- especially when we came upon the offspring of our majestic Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) -- one of the weediest trees out there, as its winged seeds don't require overwintering and germinate as soon as they fall to the ground in early spring -- not to mention our Japanese or Multiflora Roses (Rosa multiflora), a lovely and fragrant early summer bloomer once prized as a "living fence" but now outlawed in many agricultural states for its aggressive weediness. Like the plants themselves, we've got to harden up. That's why maples and roses have so many offspring: Individuals are expendable.
*The genus name, Chelidonium, is from the Greek chelidion (a swallow), "said to start flowering as the swallow arrives," according to Dictionary of Plant Names by Allen J. Coombes.
Update: TigerHawkLanche! Thanks, buddy, and have a good trip.
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