{"id":144,"date":"2009-04-13T07:40:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T15:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=144"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:00","slug":"marsh-marigold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/marsh-marigold\/","title":{"rendered":"Marsh Marigold"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARSH MARIGOLD
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I often walk in the glen that runs through the center of my town.\u00a0 Parts of the area have been left in a semi-natural state and during the growing season I look for, and frequently find, flowers.\u00a0 Early spring brings several patches of snowdrops, which were probably “planted”\u009d by light-fingered squirrels that lifted them from nearby gardens.\u00a0 As the season progresses, purple violets appear along with the small native claytonia, which are pink and white and hug the ground in mid-spring.\u00a0 Eventually, in May, the wild raspberries and blackberries bloom just a little before the multi-flora roses.\u00a0 The latter are non-native plants and are enormously invasive, but smell wonderful.\u00a0 Dandelions bloom from spring until frost.\u00a0 In the fall, white-flowered wild ageratum competes with asters that cap the season with small blue daisy-like flowers.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This year I noticed another flowering plant, marsh marigold or Caltha palustris.\u00a0 Judging by the size of the clumps, which were small but well established, I am sure that it is hardly new to the glen.\u00a0 It is just the first time I have laid eyes on them..\u00a0 Growing in damp soil, marsh marigolds have five-petaled yellow flowers with a healthy cluster of golden stamens in the middle of each one.\u00a0 They hug the ground, growing only an inch or two high.\u00a0 The dark green leaves are heart or sometimes kidney-shaped and tend to be shiny.\u00a0 I would never have noticed these little plants if not for the bright flowers.\u00a0 When I went back to the same spot about five days later, the flowers were already gone and I had to look sharp to spot the leaves.\u00a0 The characteristic short-lived blossoms place marsh marigold securely in the group of flowering plants that are sometimes called “spring ephemerals.”\u009d\u00a0 Trilliums fall into this category as well. True to the nickname, the ephemerals push up through the ground, bloom, set seed and often die back by early summer. \u00a0For those of us who find philosophical resonance everywhere, the spring ephemerals are a yearly reminder of the transitory nature of all things–especially beautiful ones.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes Caltha palustris is called “King Cup”\u009d, but it also goes by lots of other common names that vary by country and region.\u00a0 It is native to the northern hemisphere and occurs naturally in both the Old and New Worlds.\u00a0 Its cup-shaped flowers and fondness for wet spots prompted Linnaeus, the great eighteenth century taxonomist, to christen the plant with names that reflected those facts.\u00a0 “Caltha”\u009d is probably derived from “calyx”\u009d, the Latin word for “cup”\u009d.\u00a0 “Palustris”\u009d is also from Latin and means “marshy”\u009d or “swampy”\u009d.\u00a0 Though it is often called marsh marigold in America, Caltha palustris is not related to the garden marigold, which belongs to the genus Tagetes, or the pot marigold, which is known to its botanist friends as Calendula.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gardeners often set great store by relationships, so it is important to know that marsh marigold is a member of the buttercup or Ranunculaceae family.\u00a0 Other prominent buttercup family relatives include clematis, columbine, anemone, nigella and hellebore.\u00a0 If you can imagine a wide-open buttercup flower, you will have a pretty good idea of what marsh marigold looks like. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Marsh marigold blooms in early spring, providing pollinating insects with much needed sources of pollen and nectar.\u00a0 Some sources indicate that the plants are ancient, having emerged as the vast glaciers of the last ice age receded and melted away.\u00a0 Though they have managed to survive this long, marsh marigolds are jeopardized in many locations by the same forces that have diminished the populations of other wildflowers–development.\u00a0 As with other wildflowers, you should enjoy them when you see them and feel free to take pictures.\u00a0 Do not pick the flowers or dig up any of the plants, even if you find them in an out-of-the-way place where you think it doesn’t matter.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That doesn’t mean that you can’t have marsh marigolds, and, in fact starting a clump in your garden can help preserve the species.\u00a0 You can sometimes obtain seeds or plants from specialty nurseries, but be careful.\u00a0 Buy only those plants that are nursery propagated and grown.\u00a0 If the catalog or online plant information doesn’t mention this, make sure to ask.\u00a0 One reliable source for nursery propagated and grown Caltha palustris and many other wildflowers is the New England Wildflower Society, 180 Hemenway Road, Framingham, MA 01701; (508) 877-7630, or online at <\/font><\/font>www.newfs.org<\/font><\/a> (go to the homepage and click on the “Grow”\u009d tab).\u00a0 The plant list is available online, but there is no printed catalog. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARSH MARIGOLD \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I often walk in the glen that runs through the center of my town.\u00a0 Parts of the area have been left in a semi-natural state and during the growing season I look for, and frequently find, flowers.\u00a0 Early spring brings several patches of snowdrops, which were probably “planted”\u009d by light-fingered squirrels that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}