Eranthis

This is a genus of eight species, the only one of which commonly encountered in cultivated in Eranthis hyemalis. The winter aconite is a member of the buttercup family and grows as a wild flower in Britain, providing us with our earliest splash of buttercup yellow for the year. The flowers, surrounded by a ruff of sepals, start to appear in January, continuing to push through the ground in increasing numbers for several weeks. It quickly makes clumps and seeds around, so it is great for ground cover in sunny or shady sites. They are much more likely to establish if they are acquired as growing plants than if dried corms are planted.