Sunday, April 19, 2009

Beat This!


Beat this, if you can for total oddness; it's Asarum heterotropoides (I believe ssp. mandshuricum) from China. It is a wild ginger; the great majority of the Asian gingers are evergreen (or, make a brave attempt at it here in Iowa) and therefore of borderline hardiness. This ginger however is deciduous and seems totally hardy, with these extremely unusual flowers appearing in profusion every spring, nestled at the base of the plant.

Posted by Picasa

Comments:
our wild ginger has lemon yellow blooms. i love yours.
 
Don,
We'd love to get some ginger going in our garden somewhere, they're so odd looking. Are there any varieties that you can actually harvest for the roots? It would be cool to grow that!
 
Iowa Boy, That is the craziest ginger I've ever seen! I feel as though I'm looking into the frontal mandibular area of a crawdad! (Is that proper terminology, or should I have just said "I feel as though I'm looking into the mandibles of a crawdad.") ha.
I have the native wild ginger, courtesy of my Aunt MEA. And it's doing Very Well this Spring! :-)
 
Sky... lemon yellow? Sounds cool!

IVG... the wild gingers are used medicinally, but the tropical gingers (difft. species) is the source of the spice.

Shady... watch that native ginger; boy is it aggressive, and it's hard to get out of other plants.

Don
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?