Helichrysum italicum Seeds | Curry Plant
LATIN NAME: Helichrysum italicum
COMMON NAME: Curry Plant
Plant Profile
Curry Plant (Helichrysum italicum) is a shrub in the daisy family (Asteraceae). Brush past curry plant on a warm afternoon and air fills with warm, spicy scent of curry, though plant is no curry plant at all in kitchen sense. The whole plant glows silver in the sun, and its fine, spicy scent carries on the warm air. It is a plant of dry, rocky hills of the Mediterranean, and it is known as curry plant. Mature plants top out at about Fifty or sixty centimetres. Together these qualities explain its long-standing appeal to gardeners.
Science & Biotechnology
The species features in the wider study of the daisy family, and its traits make it a useful subject for work on germination biology, cultivation and ornamental selection. Researchers have looked at narrow, silver-hairy leaves and oils that give them their warm, spicy scent, and botanists have examined bright yellow, papery flowers that hold their colour when they are dried. It retains a following among breeders and collectors, which keeps seed stocks in circulation.
Uses & Benefits
Curry Plant works well in borders, containers and dedicated beds. For dry, sunny garden, curry plant is a fine, silver, aromatic plant. Its narrow, silver-hairy leaves glow in sun through year, and small, dense heads of bright yellow, papery flowers open through summer and hold their colour when they are dried. Warm, spicy scent of leaves carries on warm air, and plant makes a fine, neat, silver edging to border and dry bank. Mature plants need little attention in a well-chosen position.
Immortelle flowers are famed in aromatherapy, their essential oil prized in skin care for bruising and scar support; the papery blooms are everlasting in dried arrangements and make a pleasant herbal tea.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed of Curry Plant under ordinary good conditions. Level a tray of loose seed compost, sow evenly, cover to about the seed’s own depth, and keep it moist in full light. Pot the young plants on as they grow, harden them off gradually, and plant them into their final positions when sturdy.
Our Take
Among the Helichrysum group, it is one of the more distinctive species in cultivation. Moisture matters most while plants are young; established plants cope with far more.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Curry Plant: