Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, the first sign of spring made its appearance in our garden. The first flower to pop out of the ground is Eranthis, sometimes called Winter Aconite (although it is not related to aconites and is not poisonous). This is actually a late arrival this year. Most winters we have a week-long thaw in the third week of February and it is then the Eranthis appears. This year the heavy, unbroken snowfall and cold weather has delayed the usual early blooming of these flowers.
The bright, buttercup yellow flowers are about 2 cm (3/4 inch for our American friends) across and will force themselves out through frozen soil and light snow (yes that is snow in the images) in sheltered areas. That is the case with the ones shown here. They are growing in a well sheltered southern exposure and are located in the first place they appear in the garden. Over the next two weeks the entire area will bloom and we will have a carpet of yellow in patches over the entire yard.
Eranthis are the first to bloom and also the first to disappear. By mid to late May there will be no sign of them as they will have gone to seed, dried up and disappeared again, until next year.
Our Eranthis were started from clumps in my parents yard in Niagara-on-the Lake. I remember these flowers well from my childhood there as they appeared in many of the older, established gardens there.
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