Common Name: Celandine or Greater Celandine (above) and Lesser Celandine (below) – Celandine is frequently called greater celandine to distinguish it from its unrelated namesake. It is derived from the Latin word chelidonia which means swallow (the bird not the verb) in English. The purported reason is that celandine flowers bloom in early spring when swallows arrive to its original Mediterranean habitat and wilt when the swallows depart. Celandine is also called swallowwort due to this association and tetterwort or nipplewort for its medicinal applications. Lesser celandine got its name due to superficial resemblance to the celandine, both having yellow flowers and proliferating in similar wet areas. It is sometimes called fig buttercup or pilewort for its use in treating piles, another name for hemorrhoids.

Scientific Name: Chelidonium majus – The genus of greater celandine means swallow in Latin as per discussion above. The species name is Latin for major, a synonym for greater. It is in Papaveraceae, the Poppy Family. Lesser celandine is Ficaria verna. The genus is from ficus, the Latin word for fig which is attributed to the two plants having similar root structures. The species name accounts for its spring (vernal) blooming. It is a member of Ranunculaceae, the Buttercup Family.

Potpourri: Even though the greater and lesser celandines share the same name, they are not closely related according to taxonomy. While both are in the Order Ranunculales of flowering plants, they are in two different families: Poppy and Buttercup. There is, however, a good reason for mistaken identity. Aside from growing in similar wet habitats as weedy plants, they share a long history of similar uses by humans for medicinal applications. It is likely that early herbalists who sought plants for potions and poultices looked for yellow flowers and found one or the other. Since greater celandine was almost certainly the first to be exploited for its chemical compounds, the addition of lesser celandine became a useful mnemonic for herbalists. Because both are overly successful in reproduction, spreading out from a small clump to take over relatively large areas, they are both subject to the universal pejorative for anything that grows were humans don’t want it to. A weed is “a form of vegetable life of exuberant growth and injurious effect” according to Merriam -Webster Third International Dictionary.  Lesser celandine is by far the most notorious and is considered an invasive species in some areas.

Another reason for referring to celandine as greater celandine is to distinguish it from the celandine poppy, also known as the wood poppy, a plant indigenous to North America. Celandine poppies are in a different genus (Stylophorum diphyllum) but are otherwise very similar in terms of chemical, and therefore medicinal properties, common characteristics of many Poppy Family plants. [1]  In all likelihood, the original name of this flower was wood poppy, and due to its superficial resemblance to the greater celandine, it was given an alternative name celandine poppy by settlers moving inland from the original colonies. This has some credence as they are found mostly in the Midwest, which was subject to waves of migration from the original New England states after the passage of Northwest Ordinance in 1787 as one of the first acts of the newly established Congress. The use of the celandine name for both the lesser celandine and the celandine poppy is almost certainly because it was well known to many settlers who came to the New World from Europe. Greater celandine was (and is) one of the more common herbal remedies for a wide range of ailments in the Old World.

Greater celandine, like most herbal remedies, was adopted by apothecaries based on trial and error oral tradition that singled out natural plant medicines. Prior to the scientific revolution in chemistry of the nineteenth century that led to pharmaceutical formulations, nature was the only choice. However, even in the modern era of big pharma, many if not most drugs are synthesized based on plant (and fungal) chemistry. Since every plant needs to grow large enough to reproduce, many evolve smells and tastes to ward off predator animals that may range from larvae to deer. If their primary threats were bacteria and microbes, then these evolved chemicals could be good candidates for human medicines for the same effect. Greater celandine exudes a bright yellow-orange liquid from its roots and stem. This likely drew attention since yellow was one of the colors the four humors mediating human health that were postulated by the Greeks of antiquity and dominated Europe in the Middle Ages. Based on the formulation of Galen in the first century CE, red blood, yellow bile, black bile, and white phlegm were associated with sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic attributes. [2] Within the religious construct called the Doctrine of Signatures, a plant that had yellow juice must surely have been put there by God as a natural source of yellow bile. Greater celandine was therefore one of the more important herbals of history.  

What was Greater Celandine used for? John Gerard, one of the earliest and most well-known herbalists in Europe, attributes Aristotle with its use in the treatment of “the eies (sic) of Swallows that are not fledge, if a man do prick them out, do afterwards grow again and perfectly recover their sight.” What to make of this? Treating baby bird eye disorders in the fifth century BCE is probably not literal, losing its original meaning over years and translation and interpretation.  Gerard continues with “The juice of the herbe is good to sharpen the sight, for it clenseth and consumeth away slimie things that cleave about the ball of the eye and hinder the sight.” [3] The shrine of Saint Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford, England and reputed to be a “benefactress of the blind” is decorated with a bas-relief of greater celandine, presumably for its curative power since the flower is a prolific weed in and around Oxford. She supposedly called forth a spring in a village near Oxford whose waters were used as a wash to help restore vision, one basis for her sainthood. The eye cure remedy is unlikely, as the yellow-orange liquid exuded from greater celandine is highly corrosive and can only have blinded those who tried it, swallows and all. [4]

Greater celandine has been used as a folk medicine across Europe eastward into China for millennia and in North America after its introduction by advancing settlers in the eighteenth century. The root and stem juices were used topically to treat a variety of skin problems including warts, ringworm, and eczema. In modern medicinal practice, salicylic acid and/or cryotherapy (freezing) are similarly used, a measure of the strong reactive chemistry of the plant. Taken internally, it was not surprisingly used to treat yellow jaundice, a liver ailment that could suggest a lack of adequate yellow bile that needed augmentation. There has been a neo-renaissance in the use of greater celandine in the treatment of cancer over the last several decades. This takes the form of what amounts to natural chemotherapy, using the chemicals chelerythrine, copticine, sanguinarine, and citric acid produced by the plant for its own defense to kill tumorous cancer cells. [5] The most well-known greater celandine based product is Ukrain (named for the country) that was developed in 1978 and successfully tested in several small sample size studies for its effectiveness in treating pancreatic cancer. [6]

As an herbal remedy, greater celandine is not subject to the rigorous testing and certification necessary to qualify as a drug. It can therefore be procured over the counter without a physician’s prescription for use according to alleged and/or perceived (placebo) benefits. It is promoted for intestinal digestive problems, as a mild sedative, to prevent gallstones, and to treat liver disease. This is in addition to its long-standing use to treat skin problems like warts and to reduce eye irritation, despite the inconsistency of these countervailing therapies. However, treatment with greater celandine derived herbals is controversial. There is some indication that it causes hepatitis, a liver disease it is supposed to cure (discovered when patients using it got better when the treatment stopped). It is a known skin hazard, causing rashes and itching, and in some cases, severe allergic reactions. It is poisonous for dogs and some farm animals. [7] It is telling that the European Medicines Agency concludes that “the benefit-risk assessment of oral use of Chelidonium majus must be considered negative.” [8]

Lesser celandine is a doppelgänger of its greater cousin. It is a harbinger of spring in two ways. On the positive side, it blooms in profusion with a delicate, yellow-rayed flower arrayed on bright green sculpted leaves that evokes the color and warmth of the sun to erase the drab grays of winter. Since it is a variety of buttercup, the petals have the characteristic glow that is the subject of childhood play in determining preference for butter by its reflection on cheek or chin.  However, lesser celandine doesn’t know when to stop, spreading outward in all directions until it is a green blanket that covers everything. Simply put, it is invasive―an early reminder of the summertime onslaught of plants that range from Japanese stilt grass to dandelions. On its European home turf, it is beloved and eulogized as the very essence of spring. In North America, it is a weed, choking out native flowers and replacing them with a striking, but nonetheless monoculture, greensward. The good Doctor Jekyll and the selfsame but sinister Mister Hyde.

The US Department of Agriculture defines a noxious weed as “any plant or plant product that can directly or indirectly injure or cause damage to crops (including nursery stock or plant products), livestock, poultry, or other interests of agriculture, irrigation, navigation, the natural resources of the United States, the public health, or the environment.” Just about anyone with a lawn or living near a woodland stream will agree that lesser celandine qualifies.  It was introduced into the United States sometime before 1867 when the first documented specimen was recorded in Pennsylvania. It was almost certainly planted as an ornamental; its aesthetic qualities enhance the color and seasonal variety in flower gardens. Like many introduced species, its ability to spread and dominate its new habitat was neither expected nor even realized. And, like most invasive species, it took decades for it to radiate from its original site growing geometrically in reproduction. The USDA estimates that 79 percent of the land area of the United States is suitable for its habitat and that it has an 82.6 percent chance of becoming a “major invader” if introduced. [9].

There are two reasons why introduced plants (and animals) become invasive. The first is that in most cases, new introductions will have none of the environmental constraints that were extant on its home turf. It is a tenet of ecology that all living things are constrained from exponential growth by competition for resources. In the real world where resources are limited, population growth is constrained to a finite limit called the carrying capacity which it reaches by following what is called a logistics curve. Every species occupies a biological niche that includes all of the resources available to it in its ecosystem, a term coined in 1935 referring to both the physical and biological surroundings. When a species is taken from its evolved ecosystem and placed in a new one, the rules of the game change. The checks imposed at home are removed and growth continues until it is stopped by the ecology of the new habitat. [10]

The second factor associated with invasive behavior is the ability of the introduced species to spread and multiply so as to dominate the new environment. Lesser celandine has three methods of propagation that almost guarantee survival and promote spread. In addition to the seeds defining all angiosperms, it has not one but two means of vegetative cloning. The roots form small tubers and the stems form bulbils in the leaf axils. Both become detached and are spread by mowing, digging, and, most importantly, flowing water. The densest patches are found in wet areas due to the significance of the latter.  Once it gets established, it is almost impossible to get rid of it. Anything short of digging up the entire plant, roots and all and being careful not to drop any bulbils, will only result in a brief hiatus for a year or maybe two. Only a powerful herbicide like glyphosate will truly excise it.  [11]

In its European homeland where it is naturally kept in check, lesser celandine is not only tolerated but admired. In the UK, revered might be more appropriate. Described as a “sweet little plant,” it appears at the very beginning of spring (which is how it crowds out the competition) with the bright sun-like flowers, it is sought out by gardeners and bred by horticulturalists. There are over a hundred cultivars that range from “aglow in the dark” to “yaffle” and include  dusky maiden, mister brown, and the ghost. [12] The poet William Wordsworth admired the lesser celandine, writing “It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so early in the Spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English Verse.” [13] So he proceeded to write a poem that begins with:

                                     There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,

                                     That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;

                                      And, the first moment that the sun may shine,

                                      Bright as the sun itself, ’tis out again! [14]

Had Wordworth been an American poet the leitmotif might have been beauty and the beast instead of sunshine.

References:

1. Niering, W. and Olmstead, N. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998, pp 670-675

2. Parker, S. Kill or Cure, Illustrated History of Medicine,  DK Publishing, New York, 2013, pp 106-107.

3. Gerard, J. Gerard’s Herball – Or Generall Historie of Plantes, London, 1633, pp 39-41.

4. Mabey, R. Weeds, Harper Collins, New York, 2010, pp 188-194.

5. Foster, S. and Duke, J. Medicinal Plants and Herbs, Houghton-Mifflin, Ne York, 2000, p. 105.

6. Sloane Kettering Medical Center . https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/ukrain      

7. . “Celandine”. American Cancer Society. August 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20150423221233/http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/herbsvitaminsandminerals/celandine     

8. . “Assessment report on Chelidonium majus” European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC) EMA/HMPC/369801/2009  13 September 2011

9.  “Weed Risk Assessment for Ficaria verna  (Ranunculaceae) – Fig buttercup”  Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. United States Department of Agriculture. August 12, 2015

10. Nowicki, S. “Biology: The Science of Life” The Teaching Company, Chantilly, Virginia, 2004.

11. . “Lesser celandine, Ficaria verna”. Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board. https://web.archive.org/web/20160324080851/http://www.nwcb.wa.gov/detail.asp?weed=185    

12. http://www.johnjearrard.co.uk/plants/ficariaverna/genus.html     

13. Mabey, op cit.

14. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_(Wordsworth,_1815)/Volume_2/The_small_Celandine