Ranunculus Ficaria Brazen Hussy

Very rarely seen, this fabulous, dark-leaved variant of the celandine is also one of our earliest spring flowers, blooming just after the snowdrops as early as February. It makes solid carpets of superb, shiny, ebony-black, tightly-packed foliage, liberally studded with golden stars. This solid, glistening foliage is an astonishing annual weed suppressant, making a solid low carpet, stifling germinating annual seedlings which simply do not have light to survive until May or June. Then the celandine's leaves promptly die completely away, having achieved their "mulching/weed suppressing" duty. This leaves clean, bare soil for other later plants to sprout, and just tiny harmless underground tubers, out of sight until the following February! This beautiful flower also has a curious habit of opening and shutting its petals, to protect them, according to the weather!