2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Dentaria (lat. Dentaria) - shade-tolerant and shade-loving perennial from the Cruciferous family. The second name of the plant is zubyanka.
Description
Dentaria is a rhizome perennial, equipped with not too high erect stems and pinnately-divided or finger-separated leaves.
Dentaria bloom starts at the very beginning of spring - this beauty invariably attracts bumblebees with bees and numerous butterflies. The flowers of this plant can be either lavender or pink.
By the way, some botanists are used to combining dentaria into a common genus with a core. In total, there are about thirty of its species in nature.
Where grows
Dentaria is especially widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is also found in the rest of Russia (in the Northwest, as well as in the Black Sea region and the Volga region).
Varieties
The most famous types of dentaria include:
The dentaria is five-leafed. The homeland of this plant is considered to be the ravines and shady forests of Asia Minor, the Caucasus and Southeast Europe. The height of this rhizome perennial, which forms an unusually dense clumps of rhizome, ranges from fifteen to twenty centimeters. The leaves of the five-leaved dentaria are two- or three-paired, pinnate. This beauty usually blooms in May, while the diameter of its mauve flowers often reaches one centimeter. And with the onset of June, its vegetative parts die off.
The dentaria is glandular. And this plant came to us from the shady forests of Southeast Europe. This long-rhizome perennial reaches a height of ten to fifteen centimeters, and, like the five-leafed dentaria, it forms luxurious dense clumps. The rhizomes of the glandular dentaria are creeping and rather fleshy: on sandy loam soils they are usually more authentic, therefore the clumps look sparse, and on loams the rhizomes branch much more strongly, which allows plants to form more compact groups. The leaves of the glandular dentaria are finger-separated, and rather large flowers, reaching one centimeter in diameter, can be either crimson or white.
Tuberous dentaria. On the stems of this plant there are many successive leaves, in the axils of which small black onions hide. The upper leaves of this plant are always whole, and the lower ones are pinnately dissected. And the fruits of tuberous dentaria have the form of flattened linear pods. By the way, this plant does not often boast of well-developed mature fruits.
Usage
Dentaria is used in landscape design - it looks especially good in compositions with other colors. And tuberous dentaria can also boast of healing properties - a decoction prepared from it will help to cope with dysentery, tetanus and colic in children.
Growing and caring
The shade tolerance of dentaria allows it to be grown even in highly shaded areas, but it is important to take into account that it needs moist and cool soils. And the most ideal option would be moist and humus-rich soils, characterized by a slightly alkaline or slightly acidic reaction.
The dentaria tolerates cold weather very well - even after short return frosts, its buds can thaw and continue their flowering!
As for the reproduction of this plant, it occurs mainly vegetatively - in June, closer to the end of the growing season, it is propagated by dividing the rhizomes. In general, the dentaria is extremely unpretentious and almost never gets sick.
