Sorrel & Salt
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Reference

Compendium

Ingredients for spellwork: their formal and folk names, categories, deities and forms, with the sources behind them.

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    313 ingredients

    313 ingredients

    NewCaution
    Botanical Name
    Ficaria verna

    Lesser Celandine

    Lesser celandine is a low, hairless perennial of the buttercup family, seldom taller than about 25 centimetres, with fleshy, heart-shaped leaves that are dark green with a mottled pattern, and glossy, bright yellow flowers. It is native to central Europe, North Africa and the Caucasus and likes ground that is wet for part of the year. Brought to North America, where it goes by fig buttercup, it has become an invasive weed that crowds out native spring wildflowers. It starts growing in late winter, flowers from late February into May in Britain, where many take it as the first sign of spring, and has died back by the end of May, spreading mostly from the small tubers on its roots. Herbalists long called it pilewort and used it against piles. William Wordsworth was fond enough of the flower to write three poems to it. Lady Rosalind Northcote was given a Cornish eye cure of celandines pounded with salt and laid on the inside of the wrist; she felt nearly certain this plant was meant, though she suspected the cure had wandered over from the greater celandine. In magic it shares the correspondences Kynes gives to celandine as a whole, among them release: a handful of dried leaves is crumbled and strewn outside as one turns slowly round.

    Caution

    Kynes warns that lesser celandine is toxic if eaten. Like the rest of the buttercup family it holds ranunculin, which turns into the irritant protoanemonin when the plant is damaged: touching crushed leaves can cause itching, rashes or blisters on the skin or mucous membranes, and swallowing it can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, spasms or paralysis. One person developed acute hepatitis and jaundice after taking untreated extracts of it for piles. The raw plant is poisonous to grazing livestock and can be fatal to them. Drying or cooking turns the toxin into harmless anemonin.

    Forms

    • Leaf
    • Root

    Correspondences

    Elements
    Earth, Fire
    Zodiac Signs
    Aries

    Folk Names

    • Crazies
    • Crowfoot
    • Fig Buttercup
    • Golden Stars
    • Pilewort
    • Raven's Foot

    Categories

    • Dream Work
    • Justice
    • Knowledge
    • Legal Matters
    • Prophecy
    • Protection
    • Release
    • Success
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