Adonis dentata Seeds | Pheasant’s Eye
LATIN NAME: Adonis dentata
COMMON NAME: Pheasant’s Eye, Adonis
Plant Profile
Adonis dentata is a small annual of eastern Mediterranean cornfields, with finely cut leaves and a single blood-red flower that opens only in sun. It grows from Greece and the Balkans through Turkey, the Levant and Egypt to Iran and the Caucasus, in cultivated fields, stubble and dry stony slopes, mostly below 1,500 metres, and it completes its life between the first winter rains and the dry weeks of May. The plant reaches 10 to 25 cm, with feathery, almost thread-like leaves and a solitary flower an inch across, its petals marked at the base with a dark blotch and a white ring. The centre is a cluster of greenish pistils that later becomes a head of beaked achenes. It is easily overlooked among the corn, and it is one of the first flowers to appear in a Mediterranean spring. The name refers to the toothed margin of the leaves and achenes, not to the flower.
Science & Biotechnology
Adonis dentata is an annual in a genus better known for its perennials, and its whole strategy is to finish before the drought: seed germinates with the first substantial rain, the plant grows through winter, flowers in February and March, and dies as the soil dries. The flower closes at night and on cloudy days, a behaviour that protects pollen and limits visits to the hours when bee activity is highest. Like many buttercups it contains ranunculin, which breaks down to protoanemonin when the tissue is crushed, producing a blistering irritant oil; livestock avoid the plant, and handling it can raise a rash on sensitive skin. The achenes are dispersed by ants, which carry them for the oily appendage and leave the seed underground. The species is a poor competitor in dense crops and has declined across northern Europe, though it remains common around the Mediterranean. It is not the species used in cardiac medicine: that is the perennial Adonis vernalis, which contains cardiac glycosides absent from the annuals.
Uses & Benefits
Adonis dentata is grown by alpine and meadow gardeners as a small winter annual for a sunny bank, where its scarlet flowers open in the first warm days of the year. It is best used in a gravel garden or a wildflower strip, sown with other Mediterranean annuals, and it will seed itself if the ground is left undisturbed after flowering. It has no food value and is toxic to stock, so it should not be encouraged in a pasture. In folk medicine the plant has been used as a diuretic and an emmenagogue, but the margin between a dose and a poisoning is narrow and the practice has largely died out. Its main modern use is in restoration seed mixes for Mediterranean vineyards and olive groves, where the annual flora has been lost to herbicides. The flowers last a day or two in water and are not worth picking.
Growing from Seed
Sow in autumn, directly where the plants are to flower, one centimetre deep in a gritty, low-fertility soil; the seed needs cool temperatures to germinate and will not come up in a warm greenhouse. Keep the ground moist through winter and thin the seedlings to 10 cm apart, since crowding produces spindly plants with few flowers. Do not feed: rich soil gives leaves and no bloom. Full sun is essential, and the flowers will stay shut on a north-facing site. Let the plants set seed and do not cut the stems until the achenes have dropped, then leave the ground alone; the species returns from its own seed in following years if the soil is not disturbed. In a wet climate, grow it in a raised bed with sharp drainage, and expect it to be short-lived. It has no pests worth worrying about.
Our Take
A tiny scarlet annual that opens with the first warm sun and is gone by May. Sow it once in gravel and let it manage itself.
Related Reading
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