Perhaps it’s fitting that a plant that was used unsuccessfully to treat the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages has started to flower and provide life-saving nectar to our earliest insects. It is one of our earliest plants to flower in the spring, second only to skunk cabbage.
The plant, shown above as it was yesterday at its earliest stage, is Japanese sweet coltsfoot (Petasites japonicus). It reportedly was introduced into North America in the 19th Century by Japanese immigrants to 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 one- and two-inch flower clusters shown here 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:
Leighton Archive Image
The mature leaves also are the source for one of this plant’s alternative common names: Japanese Butterbur. In days of yore before refrigeration, those large leaves were used to wrap butter for storage in cool places. By the way, the plant is very invasive; I wouldn’t recommend planting it. (Primary images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 24, 2024.)