The cast iron plant fall-flowering season has begun, and we happened to catch this amazing flower of Aspidistra quadripartita ‘Giraffe’ this week. Because these bizarre flowers are born at or near ground level, they are easy to miss, by all but the most obsessive gardeners. This is a little-known, low elevation species from Guangxi, China.
Four-Part Cast Iron Plant Read More »
We’re just wrapping up the flowering of the “starfish” group of cast iron plant species. While none are reliably winter hardy in the ground here in Zone 7b/8a, they make amazing house plants. The first and second are Aspidistra pulchella, and the final two images are Aspidistra radiata. The giant upright purple flower buds on
Casting for Starfish Read More »
You would think with 220 new Aspidistra (cast iron plant) species discovered since 1980 that botanists would have found them all, but that seems to be far from the case. This oddity just flowered in our collection this month, and is obviously yet another new species. This is one of the final collections (2018) made
Cast-ing a Wider Net Read More »
Flowering in early December, this is our first time to see blooms on a cast iron plant collected for us in 2018, by the late Alan Galloway in northern Vietnam. It didn’t take but a glance to realize that it represents another new, undescribed cast iron plant species. Our taxonomist, Zac Hill, has already been
A Cast of Hundreds Read More »
