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Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

Greater Celandine buds flowers and leaves

This is a medium/tall, almost hairless perennial, it’s branched stems easily broken revealing an orange juice. Leaves are rather greyish, pinnately lobed. Flowers smaller than other poppies, 20-25mm across in clusters of 3-8. Grows Apr-Oct in hedges walls & waste places, often near houses. It self-seeds and naturalises freely

In the West Yorkshire Plant Atlas this plant is not common. It is a native or introduced from herb gardens. It occurs in waste places, hedges and areas where the soil is of better base station. I saw a large area in flower by garages on Ash Grove, near Cottingley Bridge, Bingley.

Val

An ancient greek Greek physician and pharmacologist, Dioscorides, believed that swallows used the herb to restore the eyesight of blind chicks, and the scientific name derives from the ancient Greek word for swallow - ‘chelidon’

It’s been used as a herbal cure for many things including the relief of toothache, to sharpen the sight, treatment of gallstones, dyspepsia and liver disorders, none of which have been proven. What has been found is that eating the plant may cause liver damage (hepatotoxicity). It is also poisonous to chickens. Common names include: celandine poppy, cockfoot, kenningwort, sightwort, swallow wort, tetterwort, wartwort and dilwydd

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