Flower of the Month at Quin Bosca Farm
by John Bergin
January - Petasites fragrans - Winter Heliotrope
Family: Compositae
This is a perennial garden plant that was introduced from Mediterranean North Africa in 1806. I can imagine that its rampantly invasive nature resulted in mass dumping of excess plants around the countryside. Consequently, the Winter Heliotrope is now thought of as a plant of shaded hedgebanks, roadsides, and stream margins. In our case, the plant came to Quin Bosca with earth imported to form a windbreak bank on our seaward border (one of the hazards of living in Cornwall is the merciless sea breeze).
Winter Heliotrope is one of the Butterbur members of the daisy family, Asteraceae. This family has now been put into the general Compositae group and on close inspection, the flowers do seem to fill a niche between cudweeds and thistles in having multiple rays and 'clock' fruiting heads that use the wind for seed dispersal. Propagation, and therefore spread, occurs more commonly by planting segments of the thick underground stems, as happened in our case. We had no idea that it had come to our holding until the 20cm diameter rounded leaves appeared in November. Soon after the leaves, the flower stems present and continue through December and January. The leaves themselves are evident until March, when they usually die back fully, although, here in the South West, they can persist for longer.
The leaves are quite a dull green but their reddish stems project the smooth surfaces above the annuals and grasses that are dying back in early winter. In this way, they can maximise their photosynthesis at a time of low light levels. The ever-inventive Cornish once used the leaves to wrap sweet violets, which were a cash crop sold in the London markets. The plant is unspectacular but the exquisite vanilla or heliotrope scent of the flowers quite uplifts the spirit when encountered unexpectedly downwind on a rare, dry day of light breeze.
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