Earth Almanac: March/April 2001

Golden Harbinger

If you thought the first bright wildflower of spring was a small dandelion, look closer. It's probably coltsfoot--a diminutive, look-alike relative from Eurasia and Africa that's now naturalized in most of America. Officially, it's a weed, but in the bleakness of March one has difficulty generating much antipathy toward the gaudy, golden blooms bravely pushing through mud and snow. Oddly, the flowers die before the horse-hoof-shaped leaves appear, a trait that convinced early botanists that the plant was leafless. Both flower and leaves have been used as cough medicine for at least 2,000 years. The silk crowning the seedheads is favored as nesting material by chickadees and goldfinches.