Country diary: Standing up for the lesser celandine, a truly sensitive flower | Jim Perrin

Llandrindod Wells, Powys: At the earliest hint of spring, you can see its gold-spangled profusion across every field and verge here. But not everyone sees its virtuesWilliam Wordsworth's best?known poem may be addressed to daffodils, but his favourite flower in the year's bright early succession was the lesser celandine. It's a preference I share. On the whole, gardeners and botanists do not. Those I've canvassed for their opinion regard its cold-months, late-February-to-early-May profusion along verges and across lawns with something approaching disdain. I view it as our native miniature tournesol, or sunflower, following the brief sallies of sunlight, clamming up and drooping under the grey skies of a Welsh spring.Here along the sodden vernal lanes of Radnorshire, its mounded growths of heart-shaped leaves and its vivid golden flowers on frail stems are ubiquitous, bringing a stellar texture to roadside banks and meadows. They impart and enrich the winter-grey grasses with sun?tones before primroses and daffodils are fully in flower, then age before our eyes to a blanched drabness that still retains the charm of heart-shaped petals to complement its fleshy leaves. Continue reading...