Mandragora officinarum seed

LATIN NAME: Mandragora officinarum

COMMON NAME: Mandrake

The mandrake is the dark, waxy bells of the old tale, and the large, wrinkled leaves rise from the crown in the rosettes. The stemless, perennial herb carries the large, ovate, wrinkled, dark-green leaves in the flat rosettes and the small clusters of the dark, violet-green, bell-shaped flowers with the fine, waxy faces through the spring, to be followed by the round, fleshy, yellow berries, one of the fine, curious sights of the study collection. The roots have a very long record in the old tales of the warm lands, and the plant is a fine, historic presence of the legend. It is a plant of the open, sunny, deep, loose, well-drained ground. The whole plant is for the eyes only, not for eating or touching without the gloves.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The mandrake is a curious subject of the plant science, and the waxy bells keep showing up in the work on the old legend plants. The chemistry of the roots, which carry the tropane compounds of the old tales, has been studied at length, and it keeps appearing in the studies of the historic alkaloid plants, the nightshade relatives and the members of the nightshade family. The flat rosettes of the large leaves and the fleshy roots have also made it a fine study plant, and the mandrake is a regular subject of the work on the dark waxy bells of the old world.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

The mandrake is a fine, curious plant of the study collection and the legend. The small clusters of the dark, violet-green, bell-shaped flowers open through the spring, one of the fine, curious sights of the study garden, and the forked, fleshy roots have a very long record in the old tales of the warm lands as the plant of the legend and the old practice, grown for the legend and the study rather than for the table. The plant is one of the fine choices for the study collection, the historic garden and the legend bed, best kept out of the reach of the small hands. It has been written up in the botanical and the cultural papers for the forked roots and the old tales, and it is a fine, curious plant of the open, sunny, deep, loose, well-drained garden.

Give the crown a dry rest through the winter, and the large leaves will come again in the spring.

To grow the mandrake from seed, sow the small, round seeds a centimetre down in a pot of coarse, free-draining soil, keep the pot in a bright, open spot and water gently, then set the young plants out in the open ground. The seedlings come up in their own good time and grow on slowly at first. With the sun and the deep, loose, well-drained ground, the waxy bells will open through the spring.

The Mandragora officinarum is the spring flowering variety of mandrake .Depending the climate it will slowly push out bright green leaves from the central root .As they get larger the colour darkens and they flatten out ,the leaves can grow up to one foot long and about 5inches across.
In the months of January through April a mature plant will produce between one and three cup shaped delicate flowers .It is sometimes called white mandrake .