Greater Celandine - Chelidonium majus

Description

Medium to tall rather brittle, tufted plant, the stems exuding orange latex when broken. Leaves pinnately lobed with rounded divisions. Flowers bright yellow, 1.5 to 2.5 cm, in small umbels of 2 to 6. Capsule linear.

Identification difficulty
Habitat

Bare and waste areas, often close to habitation.

When to see it

April to October.

Life History

Perennial.

UK Status

Fairly frequent in most of Britain though less so in Scotland; it rarely grows far from human habitation.

VC55 Status

Frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. The Flora of Leicestershire published in 1988 states that it occurred in 186 of the 617 tetrads.

It was on the 2011 VC55 Rare Plant Register (Jeeves, 2011) but was seriously under-recorded. Improved recording since then has meant it is found in many more sites than previously known, and it therefore does not meet the criteria for the current RPR (Hall and Woodward, 2022)

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Greater Celandine
Species group:
Wildflowers
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Ranunculales
Family:
Papaveraceae
Records on NatureSpot:
120
First record:
17/05/2006 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
08/04/2024 (Hollingworth, Jane)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

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