We have two celandines, the Greater and the Lesser. Of the latter I have already written earlier this spring.
Two plants, their names suggesting only a difference in size. But they are not related at all.
The Greater is the true celandine, and its name has a story. Chelidonium majus takes its genus from the Greek chelidōn (χελιδών), meaning “swallow”.
Its flowering was said to coincide with the return of the swallow to our fields and farms, though here, on the margins of the Forest, the birds are yet some time away. In medieval herbals, it was closely tied to sight and vision. A persistent belief held that swallows used its sap to restore the eyesight of their young.
Sappy it certainly is. Break a stem and it exudes a vivid orange latex, sealing the wound almost at once. Perhaps this is why the sap found its way into folk use as a wart remover.
This trait places it firmly within the poppy family, Papaveraceae, defined in part by specialised cells called laticifers which produce that milky or coloured sap when the plant is damaged.
Quite unlike the Lesser Celandine, whose only real claim to the name is its yellow flower and its place in the spring calendar, though it appears well before the hirondelles return.