Zoöp Observations: Butterbur and ColtsfootZoöp Observations: Butterbur and Coltsfoot

Last week, the sidewalk flowerbeds of the Jongkindstraat were finally planted together with a hawthorn hedge, a number of shrubs, and seven species of flowering ground cover perennials. When selecting these ground cover perennials, the Rotterdam City Planning Department strongly favoured evergreen species. It won't do if the flowerbeds in the Museum Park look desolate during the winter. Four of these seven ground cover perennials are indeed evergreens (spotted dead-nettle, heart-leaved foam flower, purple gromwell and bigroot geranium), the other three (Japanese anemone, hardy blue-flowered leadwort and Himalayan bistort) are not.

What all these cultivar species have in common is that they are completely absent on the menu of the rabbits that cross the Jongkindstraat to forage in the New Garden. Good for human passers-by and visitors of the New Garden, who will not be confronted with half eaten plants, but bad news for rabbits attempting a varied diet.

Only one side of the flowerbeds are enclosed with marble pavement curbs. The other side is open, allowing the flowerbeds to seamlessly merge with the wild vegetation of the New Garden. I'm curious to see how that turns out in the long run.

The wild vegetation includes butterbur and coltsfoot - two species that are not evergreens but start to show themselves at the end of March. The pinkish flower spikes of butterbur (Petasites hybridus) appear from the rhizome before its leaves sprout. At the moment the leaves just started uncurling and are modest in size; eventually the leaves will grow to be quite large. Although belonging to a completely different plant genus, coltsfoot (Tussilago farfaro) also starts flowering before its leaves emerge. Plants with this reversed sequence, which is much less exceptional among shrubs, are called hysteranthous.

Another thing butterbur and coltsfoot have in common are their very long rhizomes. Attempts to remove butterbur and coltsfoot are often doomed to failure. It's telling that another popular name for butterbur is pestilence wort. And, oh yes, both butterbur and coltsfoot are on the rabbit's menu, although they serve as more of a snack than a staple.