Caltha leptosepala (White marsh marigold) flowers earlier than the yellow-flowered native marsh marigold here (Caltha palustris). Both have been eaten in the past, but as Sam Thayer notes in the “Forager’s Harvest”, the taste of Caltha palustris “never becomes truly good” despite lengthy repeated boiling and throwing out the water (he prefers the flower buds, sometimes also pickled to the leaves). The one time I tried this, I didn’t want to give it a second go. Being in the buttercup family, it contains the poisonous protanemonin, destroyed by cooking. Neither I nor Thayer has tried Caltha leptosepala , but maybe it’s milder as Harrington notes in his Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains that he ate the young leaves and buds raw or cooked….maybe I’ll give it a go next year!

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