Wild Flowers Of Strathclyde Park
  
 

Coltsfoot
Tussilago farfara
of the Daisy family
a perennial
10-25 cm high
blooms February-April
likes damp, clay-rich areas on meadows, roadsides, ditches, gardens
can be seen extensively throughout the
Park

   
 The plant has the folk-name of "son before father" due to its habit of flowering before its leaves have formed. Their horse hoof-shaped leaves give the plant its common name. The down from the underside of the leaves was once scraped off to make tinder. The whole leave was dried and smoked in a pipe as a relief for asthma.