Perhaps it’s fitting for these troubling times that a plant that was used unsuccessfully to treat the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages is now flowering and providing life-saving nectar to our earliest insects.
The plant, shown here, is Japanese sweet coltsfoot (Petasites japonicus). It apparently was introduced into North America in the 19th Century by Japanese immigrants who landed in Canada’s British Columbia. It has a sweeter scent than other coltsfoot plants, including Maine’s native sweet coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus).
The Japanese version goes through an enormous transformation in which the little two-inch flower clusters shown here disappear and are replaced by sturdy stems of about three feet in length. The leaves at the ends of those stems can grow up to four feet in width and are shaped like a colt’s hoofprint, hence the plant’s name. See the large leaves on this same plant as it was last September:
The leaves also are the source for one of this plant’s alternative common names: Japanese Butterbur. In days of yore before refrigeration, those leaves were used to wrap butter for storage in cool places. Another common American name for this plant is bog rhubarb. Beware, however, that the plant is very invasive. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 11, 2023, and September 16, 2022)