We found plenty of plants in flower unexpectedly over new year but there is one plant that is actually meant to flower in the cold and dark month of February, the dandelion-like coltsfoot or colt’s foot, take your pick. The name is because the heart shaped serrated leaves are supposed to look like a colt’s foot, but I can’t see it.
Another name for the plant is ‘son-before-father’ because the flowers emerge and set seed before the leaves appear. The scientific name is Tussilago farfara which means ‘cough go’ plant because it was used as a herbal remedy for coughs. There is some evidence that coltsfoot tea is helpful with coughs, but there is also some evidence that drinking a lot of it causes liver damage, again you take your choice.
Unlike dandelion, but like its cousins daisy and common fleabane, the flower head of coltsfoot has a ring of petal-like ray florets on the outer edge with a disc of small florets in the centre. The ray floret fringe is made up of fully functioning female flowers. Looking like an array of yellow buttons, the disc florets are mainly male. They open progressively from the outer to the centre like baby bird beaks opening to be fed in a nest but five points instead of two. Out of each throat instead of a tongue you see waving pollen-producing stamens. When ripe, the fruits are very similar to dandelions with a feathery parachute to carry them away on the wind.
Coltsfoot prefers damp, bare or broken ground such as the edges of arable fields. There is a colony at the foot of the cliff on Jacob’s Ladder beach. Every time it is buried by a cliff fall, something to remember before you go looking for it, the underground rhizomes force their way back to the surface so the flower stems can emerge. The flower shoots are bent over as they emerge to protect the flower head, reminiscent of a snake rising to the charmer’s flute. To enhance the image, the stalk is clothed in green scale like leaflets.
When the leaves do open they are covered with a cobwebby white fluff which is removed gradually by wind and rain. They are heart shaped but have an irregular edge. They last long enough to top up the food supplies in the rhizomes and die down by mid-summer.
The copious pollen is a good food supply for early flying insects. Although they appear after the flowers, the leaves are out before many other plants get going and give the caterpillars of several moth species including the gothic and small angle-shades an early start. An unusual plant not seen by many, but coltsfoot is really useful.
Ed Dolphin
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