Phlomis
tuberosa
Linnaeus
Sp. Pl.
586 (1753)
Illust.:
Bot. Mag. t. 1555 (1813)
Synonyms:
P. sythica Klokov & Sost.
Phlomoides tuberosa (Linnaeus)
Moench
Distribution
in the wild:
Hungary,
former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, China
and former USSR, on dry stony slopes, fallow fields, steppe
and meadows.
Flowering
in the wild:June-July
tuberosa
means having tubers.
This
plant has large underground tubers which can be cooked and
eaten. It develops large coarse, green, arrow shaped leaves
with long petioles. The flower stems are often bright purple
and from three to five feet high; they can be simple or
branched. The three to ten flower whorls on each stem each
have may small purplish flowers. Hardy to -20°C at least.
Herbaceous
perennial 40-150 cm. Roots string like with large tubers.
Basal leaf laminas green, papery, triangular, auriculate-cordate
or sagittate at base, crenate or dentate at margin, 5-30
× 5-15 cm; petiole 4-30 cm. Floral leaves lanceolate, 5
× 2-2.5 cm, sharply serrate-dentate and sessile. Floral
stems often purple and almost hairless, candelabra branched,
or simple. 3-10 whorls per segment, many flowered. Whorls
4-5 cm across. Bracteoles linear subulate, branched in threes
8–13 mm, hairless or hairy, ciliate. Calyx tubular-campanulate,
8-13 mm, hairless except for bristles near teeth; teeth
to 3.5 mm. Corolla 12-20 mm, pink to purple.
P.
tuberosa ‘Amazone’
is an allegedly taller growing selection, but many of the
forms of the species in cultivation are its equal in height
in the same soil.
