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Roscoea auriculata is a splendid thing. It has large purple flowers, often with a flash of white
on the inner staminodes. It starts flowering in June, when the stems have reached about 30cm, and can
continue into september or even october. There is said to be some variation in flower colour in wild
populations, but at present this is hardly represented in cultivation. Gary Dunlop says: "The name derives from the way in whioch the base of the leaves extend beyond and on either side of the pseudostem, and recurving back into it, forming 'ears'... R. auriculata clumps up vegetatively and self-seeds readily. The narrow green bracts elongate after flowering and noticeably protrude from the leaves. The seed pods are contained within the top of the pseudostem, which usually swells conspicuously, a feature which is often more pronounced in R. purpurea." Jill Cowley says: "Roscoea auriculata is probably the easiest of the species to establish in cultivation, but for many years it has been grown in gardens under the name 'R. purpurea'... This species had been collected mant times before 1904 from areas around Mount Everest and eastern Nepal, but the majority of the collections came from Sikkim... Roscoea auriculata was introduced into cultivation by Henry John Elwes, who first went to Sikkim in 1870 but did not introduce this plant until 1881. Roscoea auriculata is certainly an extremely handsome plant, especially when a mature clump of plants is in full flower, displaying the exposed bracts and the fine white staminodes, set against the deep purple flowers. Roscoea auriculata can be found in eastern Nepal and Sikkim and in the area of southern Tibet to the north of those countries. Plants grow on roadside banks, rocky ground and in forest clearings from 2130 to 4880m, and flower between May and September." Writing in the Gardeners Chronicle in 1890, H. J. Elwes says: "I have usually grown it in a cold frame, and although it exists with me out-of-doors during such a winter as the last, I do not think it would stand a severe winter in most parts of England. It does very well as a pot plant in the greenhouse, and seeds freely...In Sikkim it grows in the forest at 6000 to 9000 feet elevation, usually as an epiphyte, in the mossy forks of large trees, and the roots have thus assumed a form different from those of R. purpurea, which grows, I believe, on the ground, and has larger and more tuberous roots, and a thicker stem. It likes shade and plenty of moisture during the growing season from June to October, when it dies down, and may be kept pretty dry through the winter." |
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| 18th July 2005 | ||
