Lesser celandine is a member of the buttercup family, lesser celandine is a spring ephemeral with glossy yellow flowers and dark green, heart-shaped leaves. It forms dense mats in riparian corridors, forested floodplains, wet meadows, and lawns, preventing the growth of other plants. By summer, lesser celandine dies back and disappears completely. The plant propagates primarily by small potato-like tubers that can be disbursed by water and digging animals. Once separated from the parent plant, each tuber has the potential to grow into a new plant.
Due to its ephemeral nature, lesser celandine is challenging to control. Small infestations can be hand dug if care is taken to remove all the roots and tubers. The controlled area should be revisited two to three times a season for at least two to three years to ensure exhaustion of the seed bank and that no re-sprouting has occurred. Removed plants should be bagged and disposed of in trash.
Lesser celandine and the native marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) are both spring ephemerals of wet areas with similar buttercup-like flowers. The flowers of marsh marigold have five to nine yellow petal-like sepals while lesser celandine has seven to12 narrow yellow petals with green sepals underneath. Marsh marigold has fleshy roots with no tubers.
To learn more about it, how to control it and to see additional photographs go to Lower Hudson PRISM as well as the New York Invasive Species (IS) Information through the Cornell Cooperative Extension.