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Roscoea capitata is one of the most distinctive species in cultivation . The flowers are held in a head at the top of a stalk standing well clear of the leaves. The individual flowers emerge
from the imbricate bracts that make up the inflorescence, more in the style of Hedychium greenei than a Roscoea. Well worth protecting from excess wet during the winter. Jill Cowley said: "Dr John Maqueen Cowan, who worked for the Indian Forest service as a Superintendant at the Royal Botanic Garden at Sibpur, Calcutta, reported that 'Roscoea capitata grows in damp meadows on the fringes of forests and has blue-purple flowers...clusters of fleshy rhizomes like spindles and is used in China as a cure for aches, indigestion, belch and various aches in the abdomen.' Roscoea capitata is confined to an area to the north-west of Kathmandu in Central Nepal. It is locally common on open grassy hillsides or in damp gulleys and on stony slopes or loose stone walls. It may be an early coloniser in vegetation succession on disturbed ground around villages. It grows at altitudes between 1200 and 2600m, and flowers from June to September." |
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| 26th August 2005 | ||
