Weed ID please!- greater celandine (Chelidonium majus)

We have this stuff growing all over our raised bed area. The root looks remarkably like a carrot, but the top of the plant looks nothing like a carrot to me, nor a parsnip: neither wild carrot nor wild parsnip leaves look like a match. Poison hemlock leaves don't either, thankfully.

The root and sap are a very notable yellow-orange and stain everything they touch, including skin.

It also doesn't seem to have a complicated lifecycle: the pictures are what it looks like every year, except that every year it seems like it's showing up in new places. Whatever it is, it is very invasive.

Any thoughts? I have no interest in eating it myself, but I'd love to know whether it's OK for chickens.

Thanks in advance!

Looks like greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) to me. Fits with the yellow-orange milk sap... It's toxic, probably not among the most dangerous, but also probably not good to feed to the chickens.

Eino Kenttä wrote:Looks like greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) to me. Fits with the yellow-orange milk sap... It's toxic, probably not among the most dangerous, but also probably not good to feed to the chickens.

That does look like it! Hyvä, kiitos Eino!

And a quick Wikipedia search suggests that it is indeed toxic to chickens. We'll compost it instead.

My father used to say celandine was the best for curing warts. Just smear a little sap from a broken leaf on the warts every day. He said it worked brilliantly.

Now, that's interesting! My uncle swears by dandelion sap, but I tried it once and it didn't seem to do much. But celandine contains way more potent chemicals (read toxins) than dandelion... Gonna try next time I have a wart.

Just in case you want to confirm it is celandine, cut one leaf, and look at the sap. If it's orange, it's celandine.

Mike Lafay wrote:Just in case you want to confirm it is celandine, cut one leaf, and look at the sap. If it's orange, it's celandine.

The sap is definitely orange! Thanks again.