Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

Celandine is native to Europe and Western Asia, but it has been present in North America for almost 400 years, as it hitched a ride with the earliest European settlers. Back in those days the plant was used as a yellow dye (if you break a stem you will see the yellow sap), and it had many medicinal uses. Massachusetts is proud of it’s role in the settlement of America, it seems, because the plant does not show up on the invasives list. Our neighboring states, however, don’t have the same feelings and list it properly as an invasive species. As invasives go, it does not compare to the more agressive plants, and the propagation is aided by ants – they like the seeds, which have elaiosomes, and carry them to their nests, from which the plants often sprout. Since ants don’t move that far from their nests, Chelidonium spread is rather slow. The argument could be made that this plant has been here so long that its stay should be grandfathered. We’re a country of immigrants after all, and when it comes to those this plant is definitely “old school”. It behaves rather nicely to other plants in its environment so we should not fear a celandine monoculture anytime soon. I am also on the fence because I have wood poppy in my yard, which is a close relative of this plant native to places like Pennsylvania and New York, and therefore technically non-native to Cape Cod.

Chelidonium majus Center Street, Yarmouth Port