Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Torquay's mystery plant

I mentioned in my last post that not many of the plants in the Palm House at Torre Abbey in Torquay had labels. Of course the one I fell in love with was one of those without identification.

Trouble is, I want it. I really want it.

Any ideas?

It was the sight of those exquisite flowers which first caught my attention. I've never seen flowers weeping before.

Now those of you with a delicate disposition had better look away, as I'm about to show you quite the most eye-popping and frankly embarrassing seed capsules I've ever seen.



In case you wanted a closer gawp at those...



You can look again now. Here's a more calming photo of the leaves.



It was about 5ft high or so, and multi-stemmed - a sort of loose clump, I suppose. I am deeply smitten, so if anyone out there knows what it is and can introduce me, I will be eternally grateful.

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3 comments:

  1. Rob9:09 pm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepias_physocarpa

    From Africa, so warm temperatures required.

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  2. The Constant Gardener5:29 pm

    That's it! Thanks Rob! The pics on the Wikipedia entry aren't that convincing but then I looked here: http://www.succulent-plant.com/families/asclepiadaceae/asclepias.html
    and if you scroll down to the bottom, there it is.

    Plus a wierd fact - those seedheads are filled with a silky down. It's too short for weaving, but they used it to fill lifejackets in World War II. Betcha didn't know that.

    Anyway - now I just have to find someone who will sell it to me...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rob6:33 pm

    Interesting stuff! Bet they had a giggle when they were harvesting the silky down.

    Please inform us when you find a plant, my lifejacket looks like it could do with a bit of extra filling!

    ReplyDelete