Description
This is a superb, stable, horticultural form in which the flowers have twice the usual complement of petals, both the inner and the outer whorls are doubled and each set of petals is beautifully infused with a pink-amethyst colouration throughout. This is not a pom-pom type flower and as such it retains all of the sophisticated elegance of the normal form, taking its beauty, but elevating it to a new, higher, level.
The parent species is very choice woodland perennial is found only in a few montane woodlands in central Honshu, Japan.
It has attractive, divided, ferny foliage standing between 35 and 55 cm tall, rarely larger and always controlled by the amount of water, shade and humidity – it is shorter and less luxurious if too dry. From July, onwards to about September, it bears nodding, flowers in slender elegant spikes, hovering over the leaves.
It is slow growing and rarely seen, but it is not in fact difficult if given humus-rich, semi-shaded conditions. Attention to detail and site, sheltered from drying winds, in a leaf- or peat-rich, moist but well-drained soil will bring it to perfection. It does not like dryness at the roots or in the air (though do not even think ‘garden pond’ – it likes good drainage as well as water). This is a ‘grow-me’ plant, that oozes class and understated elegance from every shoot.
