Plant of the day is: Eccremocarpus scaber or Chilean glory flower
Public Domain! But to give credit, from Curtis's botanical magazine 1878. Awesome.
Sometimes plants just manage to find me. It's kind of a weird thing, I wind up around one and then again seemingly randomly a few weeks later the same plant will pop up and stick in my head. This plant of the day gets the nob because it is fairly insistent that I give it it's fair due.
Taxonomy/etc.: Eccremocarpus is a very small genus with only 3 accepted species. The other two are E. viridis and E. huianaccapac. Boy am I glad I'm not doing E. huianaccapac today, just TRY and say that five times fast. It is a member of the Bignoniaceae or bignonia family. Nearly all the members of Bignoniaceae are woody except for a few vines and subshrubs. Eccremocarpus falls into the territory of semi-woody and would be considered a liana or woody climbing vine. As a fun fact, Bignoniaceae is another of those families that has really benefited from phylogenetic analysis and has been considerably condensed down to about 86 accepted genera. The family is noted for it's tubular flowers and you can see a member of the family every year in the late spring. Catalpa trees with their large leaves and white flowers make for quite the show here in St. Louis every year. I look forward to it next year.
Description: From Chile! And Peru too I believe. A fast-growing, slender, evergreen (where hardy) perennial climber. It has clinging tendrils (twiner I believe), pinnate leaves, and terminal clusters of tubular, reddish orange flowers. Flowering occurs nicely from late spring through the fall. If grown in a hardy environment it will reach an ultimate height of about 3m with a spread of 1-2m but that can take between 2-5 years. Cultivars of this are available in the horticultural trade, which I'll get into...now.
Culture/Usage: Commonly used as an annual ornamental as it has some very colorful and unique flowers and is not one of the more aggressive vines. Will reportedly fill out a 2m X 2.5m trellis very well in a growing season (get our your calculators Americans). It is only hardy at about zone 8 or 15F (I took pity on ya). It can actually die mostly back to the ground in a season and return if the roots stay warm. Requires full sun, very full sun. It likes a lot of light and moist but well drained soils. Can be overwintered but can attract mites and whiteflies ...which you definitely don't want. It recipient of the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM). Germinates very readily from seed stored upwards of 2 years.
Hort tip: Pair up with Asarina scandens 'Joan Lorraine' for a fantastic color display. If you do it, take a picture. I want to see it. I bet it's amazing. You'll be trading in a bit more purple if you do it right because Asarina prefers light shade and you'll lose a bit of Eccremocarpus flowering in lower light.
Super-extra-nerdy-bonus!: Eccremo = pendant, carpus = fruit, scaber = coarse, rough, like sandpaper
Enjoy!
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