Marsh Marigold
Caltha palustris
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Kingcups — big glossy gold flowers in the wet, and one of our oldest surviving natives.
A robust perennial of wet ground with large, glossy, kidney-shaped dark green leaves and bold golden-yellow flowers up to five centimetres across. The flowers have no true petals; the gold comes from enlarged sepals. Marsh marigold grows in marshes, wet meadows, ditches, pond margins and flushes throughout the Dumfries area.
Behaviour
It is one of the most ancient plants in the British flora, thought to have survived the last ice age here. The seeds are corky and float, so they are dispersed by water along ditches and burns. The whole plant is acrid and mildly toxic, and grazing animals avoid it, which is why it can persist so conspicuously in wet pasture that is otherwise closely cropped.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Buttercups (Ranunculaceae)
- Height
- 20–50 cm
- Status
- Native; common on wet ground
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