Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Plants Wanted Or For Exchange => Topic started by: Alan_b on June 21, 2012, 08:12:33 PM
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Jupiter's Beard, Centranthus ruber, is a plant I have always knows as Valerian but there is another plant of the same name and it's official (Valeriana officianalis). So I think the plant I am interested in is more correctly called Red Valerian (sometimes Red Spur Valerian) which would be fine except that it comes in dark red, pink and white. It's a great plant, likes full sun but is very drought tolerant so it tends to sow itself into crevices where nothing else would grow - making it an ideal plant for a rock garden if you have large rocks. I think because it is widely naturalized and grows in inhospitable spots without the need for care, it is often overlooked. The only downside I can think of is that it has an unpleasant scent so it's no good as a cut flower; outside in a garden there isn't a problem.
About a year ago I took a train from London to Penzance. In Devon and Cornwall you see lots of Jupiter's Beard naturalised and looking out of the train window I started to wonder if there really were just the three colours. Since then I have been trying to research the more obscure forms but so far I have not succeeded in actually obtaining any. My interest was re-kindled by another visit to Cornwall as the plant was growing in many of the walls around where we stayed.
The common forms have flowers which are either dark red, or pink, or white. I think the photo (below) shows two different shades of the pink form, but my wife disagrees.
There is reference here to a very rare pale pink form http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/centranthus-ruber-red-valerian.html (http://michaelpeverett.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/centranthus-ruber-red-valerian.html) and there was a cultivar called "First Blush" http://www.cgf.net/plants.aspx?id=8&hid=6&genus=CENTRANTHUS (http://www.cgf.net/plants.aspx?id=8&hid=6&genus=CENTRANTHUS) which is described as "soft lilac" but this has been abandoned; I'm not sure if it was the same or different.
There is an unobtainable cultivar called "Swanage" which has variegated leaves and a few others whose special features I have yet to determine.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who:
- Grows an unusual cultivar
- Has seen an unusual variety
- Knows of a nursery that actually sells any of the more obscure cultivars
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I only grow the red, white and dark pinkish. A lot of people wanted seeds from the white one i grow here. If you want any seeds just ask. If a pale pink one turns up i will let you know :)
I have never seen the variegated form.
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Alan, maybe this Nursery would be worth a look
http://www.herbnursery.co.uk/ (http://www.herbnursery.co.uk/)
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Thanks for responding, Emma. In my experience the white form is the least common amongst naturalized plants. But even there there is a bit of a mystery. According to the RHS Encyclopaedia of Perennials the variety that might think from the name was white, "Albus", is "off white with a pinkish tinge, shorter" but "Snowcloud" (which I think probably originates as the marketing name of the white seed strain sold by Thomson and Morgan) is pure white. The RHS Plant Finder also lists "Albus Purus" or "Alba Pura" which I presume is also pure white. Personally, I have never noticed any difference between white forms and have not found the off-white one. Also, T&M suggests "Snowcloud" makes a good cut flower - does this mean it lacks the normal unpleasant scent? Emma, If you would like to try an experiment, put some of your white ones inside in a vase and then see if you have to take them outside again because of the unpleasant smell.
David, I drew a blank with the plant list from The Herb Nursery, just red and white forms.
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will do
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Thanks, Emma. If anyone else would like to join in the experiment of seeing if they can use Jupiter's Beard/Red Valerian as a cut flower I would be very interested to know the results. If the internet is to be believed many people do this. The scent/smell is not hugely strong and perhaps you can get away with a single stem as part of an arrangement but a vase full is quite unpleasant, in my experience.
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I used to have the red and the white form in my front garden.
Last witer all the white ones have died and only a few reds are present.
I have never put my nose in these flowers to smell them,scared to get too relaxed I gess.
I will get a few flowers inside to check the smell.
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That's an interesting observation, Loes. Perhaps the tendency of these plants to grow in walls and crevices is partially down to the fact that this offers a warmer micro-climate for the fleshy roots where they are better-able to withstand cold weather in winter?
I've noticed that the Wikipedia entry on Centranthus Ruber agrees with me saying: "They have a strong and somewhat rank scent".
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I have one in the house, i have not noticed a rank smell :-\
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put a vase full in the bosses house for 3 days, all three colours......no noticeable smell was reported at all. Chucked flowers out today as they had gone over, not because of any smell.
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Thanks, Emma; that was a bit of a risk you took with your boss. Either there are "scented" and unscented forms or something else strange is happening.
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;D smell is subjective, just thought id see what happened.
The white has no sent to it at all.
The pink and the red have a very faint sickly sweet smell to them. Nothing that i can detect, that i would describe as rank .
I still have a pink one in my house 3 days in. I shall keep you posted and let you know what happens .
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I went right out into my garden to try one of my white ones. I put my nose right up against it and took a big sniff. It definitely has a scent and the scent definitely has unpleasant overtones, dog pee, mouse droppings? I don't know exactly, but not something you want inside your house.
But I agree that smell can be very subjective. There is a Salvia that bears the common name of Housemaid's Armpits that I personally don't find smells too unpleasant, outdoors at least.
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Curiouser and curiouser. After a few hours indoors the unpleasant smell from my white Centranthus ruber became much stronger; "pig poo" is how my wife described it (although I paraphrase slightly). We had to take the vase outside, as happened with our previous experience with the red form. Perhaps it has an adverse reaction with the hard water we have in this area?
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thats very weird ! how much did you have in the house ? maybe i should try a bigger bunch and see what happens .
Can you take a photo of the bunch and i will try and replicate it here and see what happens ? lets make a proper test :)
I am not getting any smell from mine at all :-\
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I have nipped out and had a sniff of mine in the garden - nothing, I was wondering if it had the same pungent scent as Astrantia which I think is absolutely foul.
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I have asked my mum to sniff the cut flowers in my house. On the second sniff she said it smelt of cat pee.
The smell is only noticeable if you stick your nose in it, it has not filled the house.
I still dont think it smells awful enough to not have it in the house.
Choisya on the other hand :P i just cannot stand the smell of the leaves :-X
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Past experience lead me to take only a single flower stem inside the house. Initially the scent was mild with a slight "cat pee" overtone. But after about four hours the "cat pee" smell had become much stronger and dominated anything else. I still had to put my nose quite close to the flower for this to be obvious but I wouldn't want to risk a bunch in an unventilated room.
Brian, try taking one indoors if you dare and see if it is still unscented the following day.
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Back to the original thrust of this thread, I have tracked down information on some other cultivars listed in the RHS Plant Finder (but not actually manged to get hold of any of them).
"Nettleton" is a very pale pink form supplied by nursery called "Natural Selection" but not currently on sale.
"Clair", from the same nursery, was a similar colour with variegated leaves but the original has been lost and I'm not sure if it was ever actually sold.
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Just a hunch Alan, I wonder if Rob Potterton might be able to throw any light on the one called "Nettleton". Quite a few plants bear the "Nettleton" name from the days of Rob's Dad's nursery-Potterton and Martin.
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I have had a few ,3, flowers inside for a couple of days and there is no obvious smell,not nice and not bad.I have to admit now smelling is not my best talent.
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My current working hypothesis is that Centranthus ruber normally has a faint but somewhat unpleasant scent but that this gets amplified when the stems are cut and placed in tap water in my house. This clearly doesn't happen in every locale, but the water is particularly hard in my area.
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mmmm i have hard tap water too :-\ I think i must just interpret the smell differently :o
Had to put the flowers out as the petals had fallen off, not because of the smell .
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Just out of interest, does this plant (i.e. Centranthus ruber) actually grow in Scotland or are the winters too cold? I don't think anyone north of Norwich has responded.
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I have seen in in other gardens, don't grow it myself.
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I chanced across this topic the other day. As there is more to this story I thought I would post an update.
Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Flowers helpfully gives the name of the originator of the pale lilac form of Centranthus ruber, called 'First Blush,' on his web site. I was able to track down the gentleman in question, wrote to him and he kindly sent me a large quantity of the plant. Not all of this survived the journey but I was able to keep some going in a pot, where it was rather miserable, until a suitable spot in the garden appeared. It is much happier growing in the ground.
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You may think that it's not very far off-white, which is true. But to a snowdrop aficionado like myself that is vividly coloured!
Although is supposed to come true from seed, I wanted to try cuttings to be sure of getting the same genetic material. I'm by no means expert at cuttings but I manged about a 25% success rate in 2016 and 2017 so in 2018 I was able to send out three plants raised from cuttings to the Plant Heritage Plant Exchange. The plant seems content to be in a really gritty free-draining compost if grown in a pot.
I'm still looking for a variegated form of Centranthus ruber, or yet another colour form.
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I'm searching for the centranthus in the pink form, but I can only find the red or white, unless I buy a mixed pack.
Please can anyone help me with this? Or is it a colour that doesn't breed true - an uncontrollable result of a cross between the red and white forms??
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Hello Katie,
I think www.jparkers.co.uk (http://www.jparkers.co.uk) and www.sarahraven.com (http://www.sarahraven.com) have had the pink form for sale.
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As far as I am aware, all forms of Centranthus ruber come true from seed. The pale lilac form that I eventually tracked down, 'First Blush, has produced true plants from seed for me. One popped-up in some gravel under the house eaves. It is also possible to root cuttings taken in spring, although I have only managed a 25% success rate by this method (which could be my lack of skill with cuttings).
On a visit to Belford in Northumberland last year I observed another plant with similar pale lilac flowers to 'First Blush', which itself originated in South Wales. The semi-public locale made me think that it must have grown from wind-propagated seed. Do such unusual variations really pass unnoticed by virtually everybody other than myself?
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Hi there,
I am a french entusiast of plantes, located in south of France, in a hilly area with mediterranean climate;
So, centranthus ruber is quite common in my land...since I introduced it some 30 years ago;
I selected only the "red" form (dark pink), and it is faithful to sowing at 99.9999 ...% for decades, and as the population is isolated from other forms, it remains stable.
But sometimes a white plant appears, by albinic mutation, I think.
If I let them feed, it would quickly give pink descendants.
I like the various colors, but I prefer my red population.
However, I observe with great interest the variations of colors elsewhere;
If the literature speaks only of the three classic colors, there are sometimes forms having various shades of pink, and with especially a slightly different inflorescence, more feathery I would say.
There is also a very special pink / mauve color selection, marketed by Filippi, in Mèze 34140;
and I was told about an even rarer form dark red burgundy, but I've never seen it, even in photo.
I can collect seeds of the pale pink form in season, there is two plants near my workshop (in an other village)
I hope my english correct enough for all members of the forum ... :)