Tussilago farfara
Coltsfoot
How do you recognise coltsfoot?
A yellow flower head pushes up through bare ground in spring, while the plant still has no leaves at all. The stalk is 5–15 cm tall, straight, hairy, and covered in reddish-brown scales, and each stalk carries a single head. The large heart- or kidney-shaped leaves, 10–20 cm wide, appear only after flowering.
What is it confused with?
A flowering dandelion has a rosette of leaves and a smooth hollow stem that bleeds latex. Coltsfoot has a scaly stalk and no leaves in sight.
Where does coltsfoot grow, and when does it flower?
Grows in groves, spruce mires, springs, and shorelines, and is common on roadsides and gravel. The first flowers open in early April in southern Finland where the sun reaches.
Can you collect it for a herbarium?
Coltsfoot is common, but it flowers as early as April, so a flowering shoot has to be collected early in the spring. Careful. Do not taste this plant. On the label: Note whether the specimen is a flowering shoot or a leaf, because the plant never carries both at once.
Did you know?
Coltsfoot is among the first plants to flower in spring, finishing before anything else grows tall enough to shade it. The leaves come later and gather the strength for the following spring.
Where does coltsfoot grow in Finland?
The map shows where the species has been recorded. Darker squares mean more observations.
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Observations: GBIF · Map: CARTO, OpenStreetMap
Sources: fi.wikipedia.org
Identify plants with your phone
Linnea identifies a plant from a photo and tells you its name and its story. Every find takes its own numbered place in your herbarium, with the day and the town where you found it.
