celandine

not listed

NNA - Not applicable

SNA - Not applicable

not listed

FACU - Facultative upland

UPL - Obligate upland

UPL - Obligate upland

Celandine, also called greater celandine, is a 12″ to 32″ tall, erect, biennial or perennial forb that rises on leafy stems from a thick, sometimes branched, underground stem (rhizome). It spreads by seed.

The first year the plant appears as a rosette of several basal leaves. In the second year it produces one or more leafy aerial stems.

Stems are 12″ to 32″ long, sprawling to strongly ascending, ribbed, and sometimes branched. They are covered with a whitish, waxy substance (glaucous) and are sparsely covered with fine, more or less spreading hairs. Stems and leaves exude a yellow to yellowish-orange sap when torn. The sap is toxic and irritating to the skin.

Basal leaves are up to 12″ long and up to 6″ wide, and are on leaf stalks (petioles) that are up to 4″ long. The petiole and central axis (rachis), if present, are sparsely hairy. The leaf blades are deeply pinnately divided, sometimes to the midrib, into 5 to 9 lobes or leaflets. The lobes/leaflets are egg-shaped or inversely egg-shaped in outline and rounded at the tip. The upper surface is green and hairless. The lower surface is pale, glaucous, sparsely hairy or hairless, and conspicuously veined. The margins are bluntly toothed, irregularly scalloped, and usually also shallowly to deeply lobed. Stem leaves are on shorter leaf stalks but are otherwise similar to basal leaves.

The inflorescence is an umbrella-like cluster (umbel) of a few flowers, sometimes just a single flower, at the end of the stem and sometimes also from upper leaf axils.

The flowers are ½″ to ¾″ in diameter. They are on 3 ⁄16″ to 1⅜″ long stalks (pedicels). The pedicels are only slightly inflated at the top, not forming a cup or disk. There are 2 sepals, 4 petals, 12 to 30 stamens, and 1 pistil. The sepals are hairless, 5 ⁄16″ to ½″ long, broadly egg-shaped, and broadly pointed at the tip. They are deeply concave, forming a cup around the developing flower. They are not fused together into a cap. They drop off as the flower opens. The petals are bright yellow, 5 ⁄16″ to 9 ⁄16″ long and wide, broadly inversely egg-shaped, and rounded at the tip. They are similar in size and shape and are not fused at the base. There is a double-flowered form of this plant that produces flowers with 12 to 24 petals each. The stamens have small yellow anthers. The filaments are not fused together. The pistil is formed of two fused carpels and is attached above the point of attachment of the petals (superior). It is green, narrow, and about as long or slightly longer than the stamens. At the tip of the pistil there is a single 1 ⁄64″ to 1 ⁄32″ long style with a white, more or less cap-like stigma.

The fruit is an ascending, hairless, ¾″ to 2″ long seed capsule containing numerous seeds. It is narrowly cylinder-shaped, slender, widest at the base, and tapered to the tip, where the persistent style is still attached. When ripe it splits open longitudinally from the base. The seeds are spread by ants, ant-eating birds, and humans.

12″ to 32″

Yellow

No similar species in Minnesota.

Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) flowers are much larger, up to 2¼″ in diameter. The sepals are hairy. The fruits are ellipse-shaped, bristly-hairy, and nodding. It does not occur in Minnesota.

Moderately moist. Gardens, woodlands, thickets, hedge rows, roadsides, railroads, waste places. Full sun to light shade.

May to August

Celandine sap is bright yellow or yellowish-orange and toxic. It is a skin irritant and has been used medicinally to treat warts.

Sources

2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 22, 28, 29, 30.

Native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Introduced and cultivated as an ornamental. Occasionally escapes cultivation. Established.

Uncommon in Minnesota

Habitat

Plant

Flower of Double-flowered Form

Leaves