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Friday, 22 March 2013

Marsh-marigold Caltha palustris)


File:Caltha palustris plant.JPG
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As is the case with many members of the family Ranunculaceae, all parts of the plant are poisonous and skin rashes and dermatitis have been reported from excessive handling of the plant.
Caltha palustris (kingcup, marsh marigold)[1] is a perennial herbaceous plant of the family Ranunculaceae, native to marshes, fens, ditches and wet woodland in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
It becomes most luxuriant in partial shade, but is rare on peat. In the United Kingdom, it is probably one of the most ancient native plants, surviving the glaciations and flourishing after the last retreat of the ice, in a landscape inundated with glacial meltwaters.
Height is up to 31 inches tall. The leaves are rounded to kidney-shaped1.2–7.9 inches across, with a bluntly serrated margin and a thick, waxy texture. Stems are hollow.
The flowers are yellow, (1–2 inchesi n diameter, with 4-9 (mostly 5) petal-like sepals and many yellow stamens; they appear in early spring to late summer. The flowers are visited by a great variety of insects for pollen and for the nectar secreted from small depressions, one on each side of each carpel.
Carpels form into green sac-like follicles to 1 cm long, each opening to release several seeds.
It is sometimes considered a weed in clay-like garden soils, where every piece of its root will survive and spread. In warm free-draining soils, it simply dies away. Marsh-marigolds are in decline as agricultural land continues to be drained, but they are still the most three-dimensional of plants, their fleshy leaves and shiny petals impervious to wind and snow, and standing in sharp relief against the tousled brown of frostbitten grasses. Most of the plant's surviving local names - water-blobs, molly-blobs, water-bubbles - reflect this solidity
1.       Some people will eat the leaves when cooked; boil 10-60 minutes, until tender.
2.       Roots can be cooked and eaten
3.       The variety found in Western Canada is the Yellow marsh marigold (caltha palustris)
©Al (Alex-Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved

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