It’s an April Fool’s mistake, you know. Dandelions are not sprouting near melting snowbanks, nor are there clusters growing on the gravelly roadside. The fact that you suddenly notice these yellow flowers creates our nature puzzle – to identify those with the floral meaning “Justice shall be done to you,” even as they push through blacktop.

The welcome flowering head, so soon after winter, seems flatter than a dandelion’s, with almost the same diameter. Shaped like a regular white daisy instead of the dome of the dandelion, the bloom has about 40 male disk florets forming a yellow honeyed centre, surrounded by 300 so-called petals that produce the seeds. Unable to pollinate itself, the flower attracts early bees and other insects by its smell.

Each flowerhead, often bending, stands alone on a downy stem – a scape covered with reddish scaly bracts. The yellow heads close when it rains or at night, to protect the honey and pollen. Soon heavy seed heads, drooping when moist, no longer seem glued to the ground, as stems quickly sprout to half a metre. Leaves show up in the summer.

Known from the neolithic age to Himalaya today, this plant helped coughs, even in Chaucer’s day. Sometimes called “Son before the Father,” its flowers arrive long before the broad, waxy or cobwebby leaves. Native in Ireland, clayweed refers to its clay habitat, and, though used herbally in Canada
with a carcinogenic, liver-toxic warning, the Irish produce Clayt wine and Cleats beer from it.

Introduced to Canada in the 1920’s and thriving in clay and gravel pits, this alien is now creating a problem. Road maintenance drops underground rootlike stems that hold water and have burrowing suckers, starting up new patches. The weed spreads more easily by plowing than by seed, although quackgrass invades more quickly.

The leaves, heart-shaped or like a colt’s hoof, mature to a dense ground cover by June or July, smothering field crops over a few metres. Purplish veins appear hollow, but stand out in the wooly underside.

This plant, which cheers us in spring with its dainty yellow flowers, and poses a threat to farmers in summer with its invasive green leaves, is known as Coltsfoot. For more information on control, farmers may call 1- 877-424-1300, or search for Tussilag farfara, the Latin term, at www.omafra.gov.on.ca