Nancy Payne
Feed the Birds
Feed the Birds
Don’t worry — there’s nothing wrong with providing food for birds over the winter, as long as you follow these guidelines.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PLANT?
Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum)
A.K.A: Celandine poppy, yellow poppy
RELATIVES: pale poppy (Papaver alboroseum), Arctic poppy (P. radicatum)
ORIGIN: native
RANGE: in Canada, restricted to three small, fragmented sites near London in southwestern Ontario
HABITAT: Carolinian forest
STEM: erect, hairy, up to 40 centimetres tall
LEAVES: mainly basal; up to 15 cm long and 6 cm across; paler underneath with five to seven deeply divided, irregular lobed or toothed segments
FLOWERS: deep yellow with four petals each 2 to 5 cm long; occur in clusters of up to four, blooming in May and early June
FRUIT: greyish hairy seed pod capsule divided into three or four longitudinal segments
FEEDS: bees and other pollinators, mice (seeds), white-tailed deer and other browsing mammals
PROPAGATED BY: ants
STATUS: listed as endangered by COSEWIC in 2000; plant and habitat protected under Ontario’s Endangered Species Act
THREATS: invasive plants, trampling during recreational activities
IF YOU SEE IT: Consider yourself privileged to catch a glimpse of this imperilled species.
MISC.: All parts have a bitter yellow sap.
-Nancy Payne