Ferula szowitziana Seeds | Szowitz’s Ferula
LATIN NAME: Ferula szowitziana
COMMON NAME: Szowitz’s Ferula
Plant Profile
Szowitz’s ferula is named for the nineteenth-century Russian botanist who collected it in the Caucasus, and it grows from eastern Turkey across Armenia into northwestern Iran. It is a tall species, up to two and a half metres in flower, with a hollow stem as thick as an arm and a basal rosette of leaves divided three or four times into broad, flat segments. The umbels are big, rounded and yellow, opening in late spring, and the whole plant turns a uniform straw colour by August, standing dead and upright into winter. It is a plant of dry grassland and stony slopes, often in colonies, and it is one of the more robust ferulas for a cold garden, taking frost and drought without complaint.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus Ferula is a taxonomically difficult group, and F. szowitziana sits in a section distinguished by its broad leaf segments and by the structure of the mericarp, whose dorsal ribs are prominent and whose oil ducts sit in the valleys between them. Iranian surveys of the genus have used exactly these fruit characters to separate species that look alike in leaf. Phytochemical work has identified sesquiterpene lactones and coumarins in the aerial parts, with antioxidant activity in vitro and some antibacterial effect against Gram-positive strains, though nothing that supports a clinical claim. Like most of its relatives the species is monocarpic, flowering once after several years and then dying, a life history that makes populations vulnerable to over-collection of the root resin.
Uses & Benefits
Rural communities in its range have used the resin and the dried root for stomach complaints and as a rub for aching joints, and the young stems are peeled and eaten in spring in parts of Armenia, a practice that needs care because the sap is pungent. Industrially the plant matters little, but as a forage it is grazed by sheep in early spring before the stem hardens. For gardeners the appeal is purely structural: a tall, sculptural plant that needs no irrigation and holds its shape through winter, standing in a gravel garden or at the back of a dry border. Its flowers are a heavy nectar source for bees and hoverflies over a short, intense window, and the seed heads feed finches well into the cold.
Growing from Seed
Fresh seed germinates far better than stored seed, so sow in the autumn of the year it is collected. Fill deep pots with a gritty, free-draining mix and sow two centimetres deep, one seed per pot. Leave them outside for the winter; frost is part of the trigger. Germination is spread over eight to twelve weeks in spring. The plant grows a long taproot before it makes much top growth, so never transplant a seedling that has been in the pot for more than one season. Set out into poor, stony soil in full sun. Water in the first year only, then forget it. Expect a flowering stem in the third or fourth summer.
Our Take
Tall, resinous and completely drought-proof once rooted. It is a plant for the back of a gravel border, not a herb garden.
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