Asarum sieboldii seed

LATIN NAME: Asarum sieboldii

COMMON NAME: Siebold’s Wild Ginger

The Siebold’s wild ginger is a handsome, low, creeping, evergreen perennial herb of the shaded woodlands, and its fine, kidney-shaped or heart-shaped, glossy, dark-green leaves and its small, dark-purple or brownish, bell-shaped flowers hidden beneath the leaves have made it a treasured and fine ground-cover plant of the shade garden. It grows as a low, creeping, evergreen perennial herb, reaching up to twenty centimetres or so, with the creeping, branching root-stock bearing the long-stalked, kidney-shaped or heart-shaped, glossy, dark-green leaves and, through the spring, the small, dark-purple or brownish, three-lobed, bell-shaped flowers hidden beneath the leaves, followed by the small, dry, few-seeded capsules. It is a species of the flowering plant in the birthwort family, and it is native to the shaded woodlands of the eastern Asia, while it grows in the cool, moist, shaded places, and it is known as the Siebold’s wild ginger.

In the birthwort family it is the glossy, kidney-leaved ground-cover of the eastern woodlands, a plant that turns the darkest corner of the garden into a green mat.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The Siebold’s wild ginger roots are a familiar subject in the traditional plant chemistry of the eastern Asia, and the constituents have been examined with the greatest care by the researchers across the world. The woodland botanists have mapped its place in the birthwort family and the shaded flora of the region, and the horticulturists have grown the glossy, evergreen ground-cover for the shade garden. The plant is best appreciated as a subject of study rather than a casual remedy, and the growers of the woodland border keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the woodland shade, the Siebold’s wild ginger is the glossy carpet of the cool border. Its small, dark-purple, bell-shaped flowers feed the small insects of the woodland floor, and the kidney-shaped, evergreen leaves give a neat, generous cover to the shaded border through the year. The roots carry the long record of traditional use in the region, and the plant asks for the cool, moist, leafy ground of the deep shade. Kidney-leaved, glossy and shade-loving.

Give the seeds a cold, damp rest in a bag of moist leaf-mould in the fridge, then sow them shallowly in pots of rich, leafy, moisture-holding soil, keep the pots cool and evenly damp in deep shade, and the first little leaves will appear in their own time.