GREATER CELANDINE 169 



fields, &c.), and Dairy-maid's Dock. Around gateways many common 

 plants, as Great Plantain, Swine's Cress, Knotgrass, are predominant. 

 In quarries or allotments the Deadly Nightshade is occasionally found. 

 Gardens shelter many weeds, such as Wormwood, Groundsel, Mullein, 

 Red Dead Nettle and White Dead Nettle (the latter also on roads), 

 Good King Henry, and Fat-hen; and on kitchen -middens, Hound's 

 Tongue and Henbane. 



Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus, L.) 



The seeds of this plant which have been discovered in Interglacial 

 deposits are both characteristic and in good condition. It ranges from 

 Arctic Europe, W. Asia, W. Persia, and has been introduced in North 

 America. It occurs in 96 vice-counties, everywhere but in the W.S.N. 

 Highlands (except Clyde Islands), and in the Northern Isles, making 

 97, that is, from Inverness southward, probably in each case naturalized, 

 and elsewhere as an escape. It is found in Ireland and the Channel 

 Islands. Watson considered it a denizen. 



No doubt the Greater Celandine owes its distribution very largely 

 to former uses to which it was put, e.g. to heal the eyes, and one may 

 usually find it hiding beneath the hedge surrounding the cottage garden 

 in the country or near a village. It is always found where there has 

 been some human habitation at one time or another. In the same way 

 it is one of the plants to be found on waste ground with poppies, 

 vetches, and other casual plants, and amongst ruins. 



The Greater Celandine is a leafy plant, with leaves with lobes each 

 side of a common stalk, rounded lobes, and rather slender stems, succu- 

 lent and full of juice, easily broken, hence perhaps its choice of shelter 

 under hedges, &c. It grows erect, and were its petals not so small 

 might be taken for a yellow poppy. The juice serves to protect the 

 plant from animals. Buds may be produced from the margin of the leaf. 



The leaves and stem are roughly hairy, and somewhat bluish-green, 

 the leaf-stalk enlarged at the base. The flower- stalk is umbelled, 

 and the capsules are linear, long, and contracted. Chelidonium refers 

 to the supposed coincidence between its time of flowering and the 

 swallow's appearance. The black seeds are shining with longitudinal 

 rounded ridges. 



Greater Celandine is usually about 2 ft. high. It flowers from May 

 to August, and is a perennial, deciduous, and herbaceous plant. 



When the flower opens the anthers open in the sun laterally, and 

 the stigma also matures. It is taller than the anthers, so that insects 



