Lesser celandine is a built-in abiding accepted throughout the UK in clammy meadows,
woods, lawns, hedgebanks and beside streams and ditches. It thrives in
comestible affluent clay and is a alarming garden weed. It is adumbration
advanced and in backcountry bottom celandine forms allotment of the pre-vernal
community. It grows on soils with a pH of 4.4 to 6.9. Growth is poor in dry
altitude but the plant dies down in summer and again becomes aggressive to
drought.
Lesser
celandine is capricious in blade shape, admeasurement and number. Four
subspecies are recognised in Britain. Two are built-in and two are garden
escapes. Of the two built-in subspecies, ssp. ficaria develops seeds (achenes)
but does not anatomy plantils, ssp. plantifera produces few seeds but develops plantils
in the blade axils. The above subspecies is diploid and the closing is
tetraploid. The two occasionally hybridise.
Lesser
celandine has ameliorative and alleviative uses including the analysis of
piles. It is poisonous and is said to accept acquired deaths in beasts and
sheep.
