Dandelions, lesser celandine and coltsfoot have much in common. They are perennials originally from Eurasia, abundant in the eastern United States where they were introduced hundreds of years ago, bloom in patches in April and have cheering, yellow flowers, each species brightening its habitat. The golden blooms of these plants face upward making them more visible and attractive to us, and more accessible to pollinating insects. And each of these striking and interesting plants has colonized a human-made habitat that is different than the ones the other two kinds inhabit.
Dandelions are familiar to most people and certainly the most recognizable of these April-blooming types of flowering plants. They inhabit lawns, fields, pastures and roadsides throughout much of North America. Several "toothed", basal leaves sprout late in March and their attractive flowers bloom in abundance by mid-April.
Dandelions grow long flower stems and short ones, one of the reasons for their great success in life. Long stalks reach above much green vegetation to be found and fertilized by insects. However, blooms on lengthy stems are cut off during mowing and can't produce seeds. But pollinated blooms on short flower stalks do produce seeds because they grow safely below the blades of mowers and are not destroyed by mowing. Eventually, dandelions subjected to regular cutting, or grazing, grow only short flower stems as did their parents before them. Having both long and short flower stalks is beneficial to dandelions.
Each brown dandelion seed grows a white "parachute" that carries its seed cargo away on the wind, spreading the dandelion population across the landscape. Many of those seeds are eaten by mice and a variety of striking, seed-eating birds, including northern cardinals, American goldfinches, house finches, indigo buntings and a variety of sparrows. But those seeds that escape being eaten and land in a good patch of soil will sprout and grow more pretty blossoms, and seeds.
Wood chucks, muskrats, cottontail rabbits and white-tailed deer consume the leaves and flowers of dandelions. It's amusing to see a rabbit drawing a dandelion flower into its mouth as it chews that vegetation, much like we suck up strands of spaghetti.
Lesser celandines are members of the buttercup family and grow up to six inches tall. Each celandine plant has a few long-stemmed, heart-shaped leaves. And each striking celandine flower has eight glossy, golden petals. Tens of thousands of these handsome, yellow flowers together in large patches on the shaded floors of riparian woods on floodplains along streams and creeks are lovely and cheering to see.
The lovely bluish-purple flowers of native blue violets and/or feral grape hyacinths poke through some extensive carpets of blooming lesser celandines. All those blossoms together create beautiful, wildflower gardens on some wooded bottomlands.
Coltsfoot grows along some rural roads in upland woods. This plant is so-named because its leaves are rounded like a colt's foot. The beautiful yellow blooms, which are similar to those of dandelions, sprout and grow alone before the foliage develops beneath them. Each flower stalk grows up to eighteen inches high and has reddish scales. Leaves grow as the flowers fade and seeds begin to develop where the blooms were.
Coltsfoot, like dandelion, grows seeds on each fertilized flower head. Each seed has a white parachute that carries it away on the wind. Some seeds are eaten by mice and small, seed-eating birds, but many others sprout along roads in woodlands, carrying on the beauties of the species year after year.
Many people are happy to see these lovely and common, flowering plants blooming in April, though those cheering blossoms are not native to North America. All these alien plants are readily seen if one makes an effort to find them in their respective habitats. And at least two species feed seed-eating wildlife in April and May when few other seeds are available.
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