Thursday, October 04, 2007
Kyushu Cutie
Kyushu is the southernmost of the four islands of Japan, with a sub-tropical climate, and from the mountains of that island comes a sub-variety of the common toad lily species Tricyrtis hirta; namely var. minazuki shown above. It is shorter than the regular hirta, essentially hairless (hirta, of course referring to hairy in the normal species) and the leaves of minazuki start out yellow then fade to chartreuse. In our garden it is also slower growing and blooms much less heavily than plain hirta... but some of this may be due to the fact that Iowa is a poor substitute for the rainy mountains of balmy Kyushu. I will have to say that I like minazuki best in early spring with its bright yellow foliage. Because of our summer dryness, minazuki tends to get brown streaking of its leaves by the time it blooms (which shows up prominently because of the light colored, thin and hairless leaves). I'm also not completely in love with purple spotted flowers and chartreuse leaves; with that color combination and because they are such small plants, they need more careful placement than I have given them so far; in my garden they stick out like little chartreuse thumbs in the fall.
// posted by IBOY @ 11:32 AM 
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Color preference is subjective - I like the purple & chartreuse. Thanks for introducing me to such a neat little plant.
MMD... I like strong colors too, but this is kind of a "hard" chartreuse and a soft mulberry... I dunno, it just doesn't really fit in... and I'm somebody who likes the bright yellow leaved cardinal shrubs with bright pink flowers.
Don
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Don
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