Cyclists may especially appreciate the medicinal role the yellow-blooming plant growing alongside the Rail Trail in Eastham once played. Though this buttercup isn’t known these days for being anything but a weed, its leaves were used by apothecaries of old to treat one of the peloton’s least favorite conditions. Ficaria verna, a Eurasian species that has been declared invasive by Massachusetts and a dozen other states, is also known as pilewort.
This plant is a pain because it’s in full leaf before native ephemerals have woken up, which shades them out and kills them off. If you spot any F. verna in your yard, dig it out. You can find it growing in damp spots, near waterways, and in disturbed areas in full or part sun, but you’re less likely — perhaps counterintuitively, given its history — to come across it where the sun doesn’t shine.
