Plant of the day is: Kitaibelia vitifolia or ??

Plant of the day is: Kitaibelia vitifolia or Cedar Cup

(kit-ay-BEE-luh    vy-tee-FO-lee-uh)

I'm not really trying to focus down the mallows here but I came across this genus in my travels and went..."uhhhh what is that!?".  So when I don't know something, I look it up.  It's a thing, it works.  Actually the Ontario Rock Garden's Plant of the Month for February of 2014.

http://www.onrockgarden.com/plant_of_the_month/2014-02

Taxonomy, etc:  Like I mentioned, it is a member of the Mallow family.  It is a genus of all of 3 species and only 1 of them is accepted, so basically I don't feel so bad about not knowing it.  The genus was named after Paul Kitaibel, and 19th century Hungarian botanist.  The common name is a little unclear, I've seen it as Yugoslavian Hibiscus, Russian Hibiscus, chalice, cedar cup and vine-leaved Kitaibelia.  Previously, this monotypic genus was include with Malope and Palaua but are distinguished by the precense of a schizocarpous fruit with the mericarps arranged spirally or in several superimposed whorls.  Yeah, you know, that.  Oye.  We'll do two parts of that.

1.  Schizocarpous:  A dry fruit that, when mature, splits into mericarps
2.  Mericarp:  A carpel with one seed (generally)
3.  Carpel:  The entire structure of the stigma, style, and ovary.

Let me google illustrative examples for you.

User: Denis.prevot CC BY-SA 3.0

Description:  This particular plant is a hardy perennial with a height of about 2m up to maybe 2.5m.  They are all and upright so not very wide, probably around a meter.  Flowers are white to sometimes a little light pink and around here will flower in late August to late October, which is a great time of year for a big plant with big white flowers.  Petals are fringed at the centers and stamens are a nice looking yellow that surround the style.  The five green sepals have plenty of space to show through between the petals, which is a nice look I think.  Flowers are born from the leaf axis and are singly produced or sometimes in 2's or 3's.  Leaves ...you guess it they kind of look like grape leaves.

Range:  Yugoslavia, Croatia, Balkans (Levant-ish)

Culture:  Will take part sun to full sun.  A few pictures I've seen have it situated in some pretty good shade.  My bet is that it will grow fine (maybe even better) in shade with decently moist shade, but it probably won't give you as good of a flower show.  For best results, try to aim on a spot that gets some good direct sun for a few hours and some decent shade in the afternoon.  It likes to be a little on the moist side, but may be pretty tough, who knows.  Mallows in general tend to surprise me in their flexibility when dealing with water.  Listed as zone 5-8 from several sites so I feel that's likely accurate.  The great thing about this plant is it's size, it's pretty uncommon to find a herbaceous perennial of this size that will tolerate shade well.   Some notes I've read on this say it actually prefers nitrogen poor soils, so maybe don't baby it too much, cut it loose.

Propagation:  I've read a few different things, I've seen references of 6 month 40F stratification (which is likely absolutely bonkers) to immediately sowing.  Here is what I've tried, results pending:  scraped a bit with sandpaper (seeds are somewhat small and difficult to really nick well) and then soaked for 2 days.  We shall see.

Obtaining:  You will be very hard pressed to find this in a nursery or garden center.  You CAN however, easily get seed from several sources.  Likely a fairly easily seedling to get going, and it looks like it is well worth the effort.  Definitely a plant worth going out on a limb for.

Enjoy.

User: Rolf Engstrand  CC BY-SA 3.0

Fun facts:

• Has some possibly antioxidant and antimicrobial compounds.
• Try cutting back to promote bushiness.    
• Can be found around the Lower Danube, which is a river in Europe.  A neat one.
• Apparently, extracts of this plant may be an alternative for curing meats.  Nitrites and all, ya know, prolly not the best for you.  Here is an abstract.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0309174014000758