William Wordsworth’s best‑known poem may be addressed to daffodils, but his favourite flower in the year’s bright early succession was the lesser celandine. It’s a preference I share. On the whole, gardeners and botanists do not. Those I’ve canvassed for their opinion regard its cold-months, late-February-to-early-May profusion along verges and across lawns with something approaching disdain. I view it as our native miniature tournesol, or sunflower, following the brief sallies of sunlight, clamming up and drooping under the grey skies of a Welsh spring.
Here along the sodden vernal lanes of Radnorshire, its mounded growths of heart-shaped leaves and its vivid golden flowers on frail stems are ubiquitous, bringing a stellar texture to roadside banks and meadows. They impart and enrich the winter-grey grasses with sun‑tones before primroses and daffodils are fully in flower, then age before our eyes to a blanched drabness that still retains the charm of heart-shaped petals to complement its fleshy leaves.
