Laura you are amazing!

Thanks a bunch, Laura!

Hi Matt, yes with the flowers you will know for certain. As for now, I’m leaning toward the lesser celandine. Your plants leaves appear to attached from the base, while marsh marigold leaves are alternate on its stems. You provided excellent photos, thanks! But not having the plants in person, I still could be wrong. I’m not an expert and will do my best to address your question. – Plant’s location. – Plant’s characteristics i.e. leaves shape, veins pattern, and their arrangement on the stems (also whether they are either compound or whorl), flower & fruit. Plant’s height, width, and woody or non woody. I’m not always familiar with plants, and even with ones that I do know they fool me often. I try to group them in the genera, species and cultivars. And of course Google helps, but keep in mind there are misidentified plants on Google too. I hope this helps some, again I’m not an expert and hope that my ‘guesses or speculations’ on a plant would yield the right ID. Best wishes Laura

Thanks a lot! After a ton of searching, I thought it was either the one you mentioned or marsh marigold, and I bet seeing the flowers later this year will help. Do you have a method for identifying plants in general, or in this case were you just familiar with something that at least looked like this? I’m new to this. Appreciate the advice.

With out its flowers to help narrow down its ID, I suggest you should check out lesser celandine plant (Ficaria verna formely known as Ranunculus ficaria). Link below has information for F. verna’s toxicity, medicinal, and edibility. Click on images from link below to enlarge. Best wishes! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficaria_verna