Ugly plants
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Most often we cultivate plants for their
beauty or functionality, but every now and then something comes along that can
only be described as ugly. Ugly maybe, but often such plants are just as
interesting as their prettier cousins, far more likely to provoke comments (not
always favourable) and sure to attract the attention of visitors.
By ugly I don’t mean a plant that is
totally unappealing. No, I mean those that rely on their lack of beauty or
their weirdness for most of their appeal, not those plants like the bushy
euphorbias and the hydrangea are in the love them or loathe them category.
Ugly plants are not necessarily just
monstrous curiosities. Sometimes there’s beauty in the beast, and for a brief
moment, usually at flowering time, they can rival the most gracious garden
dwellers. Alas, our ugly ducklings do not remain swans but are doomed after
their moment of glory to return to anonymity, scorn or ridicule for another
year.
Probably the best known examples of this
phenomenon are the cacti. For much of the time they are plants that rely on
shock value for appeal. Indeed, with all those thorns they actively discourage
too close an interest. Then, when you least expect it, they burst forth with
the most magnificent, huge, strikingly coloured flowers. The blooms often last
just a day, or in some case open only at night, but what an impact and what a
surprise, at least for the first time.
Other cacti and succulents, such as the
mother-in-law’s chair (Echinocactus grusonii) and the crown of thorns (Euphorbia
millii), are grown for their thorns at least as much as for their flowers.
One look at these plants is enough to tell you how they got their names. (No, I
don’t want to explain mother-in-law’s chair!)
It’s not only cacti and succulents that
can spring the surprise of producing a beautiful flower when least expected.
The bromeliads also do it frequently. Most gardeners are familiar with the
epiphytic bromeliads. They have strappy leaves that often overlap to form a
vase-shaped centre and act a water reservoir. Most of the epiphytic species are
not unattractive, but some of the terrestrial species would struggle to justify
cultivation except for their flowers.
Perhaps the most striking is Puya
berteroniana from central Chile, which is often labelled Puya alpestris, a similar but
rarely cultivated species. For most of the year this near hardy species looks
rather like a shrubby pineapple with spine-edged blue-grey leaves. Then, in
summer, it produces heads of striking metallic blue flowers with anthers tipped
with bright orange pollen. It’s one of those plants that nurseries dread,
because when gardeners see it in flower they simply must have one. However, it
never reaches flowering size in nurseries, has no appeal throughout the rest of
the year and won’t sell to anyone who hasn’t seen it in bloom.
Also from central Chile and equally beautiful when in bloom,
though nowhere near as large, Ochagavia carnea has similar grey-green
spiny foliage. It blooms most often in the autumn, though in warm climes
flowering is more dependent on the arrival of rain. The flower heads are large
— about the size of a pair of cupped hands — and composed of bright pink bracts
that enclose tubular pink flowers with golden pollen. A fully developed flower
head is almost as large as the foliage rosette from which it develops.
Some plants are really quite pretty but
simply too vicious for widespread cultivation. Thorns, spines and
irritation-causing leaves or pollen do not encourage friends. At least one
plant, Rosa sericea subspecies omiensis forma pteracantha, not only has a
marvellously convoluted name, but is, unlike any other rose, grown primarily
for its thorns. They are wonderful things: bright red-brown, translucent when
young with a very broad base and slightly recurved point. While they’re
certainly no fun to play with, they are very ornamental; real conversation
pieces compared to which the simple white flowers are rather nondescript.
Also impressively thorny, the anchor
plant (Colletia paradoxa), a native of Uruguay and southern Brazil,
shouldn’t be planted anywhere near pedestrian areas. The plant has very few, if
any, true leaves. Instead, the green stems and thorn-tipped cladodes perform
the functions of leaves. The cladodes are usually arranged oppositely on the
branches, so that two viewed together make the shape of an anchor, hence the
common name.
While at first glance it may be hard to
overlook the vicious nature of the anchor plant — especially if you have to
prune it — the plant has character and more than just the appeal of the
bizarre. Its creamy white flowers are pleasantly scented and quite showy. Also,
its very distinctive shape and evergreen appearance make it useful or a variety
of landscaping uses. It’s a superb plant to use with cacti and succulents.
For purely monstrous plants that only a
mother could love it would be hard to overlook the arum lily family. Sure, some
aroids are very attractive, but it’s hard to believe that those species that
smell like rotting meat and rely on blowflies for pollination would be grown
for anything other than shock value. Many, especially those in the genus Amorphophallus,
draw attention to themselves with their large, upright spathes. That’s only
visual effect though, memories of the smell that tends to linger longer. Although
I suppose it’s not too bad if you don’t investigate closely, putting your nose
in the flower at the wrong time is positively sickening.
Most flowers have some visual appeal and
few are more attractive than roses. One rose however, has maintained its place
in the nursery catalogues since its introduction around 1843 simply because it
is the antithesis of what we expect from a rose. Rosa chinensis
‘Viridiflora’ has deformed double flowers with twisted petals. The flowers are
a dull sage green shot through with red-brown. It is reputed to be a sport of
the popular China rose ‘Old Blush’.
Relatively few New Zealand native plants
could be called ugly. We have our share of the unusual, like the divaricating
plants I covered in an earlier article, but even they tend to look fairly
‘normal’. We do however, have a couple of genera that produce some interesting
curiosities.
The best known are the juvenile forms of
some species of Pseudopanax, which are so different from the mature
plants that it’s hard to believe they are the same species. The juvenile leaves
are usually long and narrow with sharply toothed edges. The toothed lancewood (Pseudopanax
ferox) is the most impressively armed and its 30–45cm long leaves are also
very stiff, almost woody. They’re the botanical equivalent of steak knife or
some kind of Asian toothed sword. Ferox means spiny, which is an apt
description. Its adult leaves are completely different. As the narrow-trunked
sapling becomes a round-headed tree, its leaves become smaller, rounded and
toothless.
The native broom genera Corallospartium
and Carmichaelia include some rather strange species. The alpine Corallospartium
crassicaule is naturally leafless and so dry and woody that it can be hard
to know whether it’s alive or dead. It grows to around 2m tall, though is often
stunted by its harsh environment. The small cream flowers appear irregularly
and sprout directly from the stems in clusters of up to 20 blooms. Carmichaelia
williamsii blooms more regularly but otherwise has the same flowering
habit. It looks a little more alive as its stems are quite green. As a lowland
plant it’s also easier to cultivate than its alpine cousin.
While I’m not suggesting that you make
your garden a chamber of horrors, do keep a look out for some of these
novelties when next visiting the nursery or garden centre. One or two dotted
among the masses of garden beauties keeps things interesting.
Copyright Geoff Bryant
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