2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Sanguinaria (Latin Sanguinaria) - flowering shade-tolerant perennial, which is a representative of the Poppy family.
Description
Sanguinaria is a magnificent winter-hardy perennial, equipped with bright red horizontal branching rhizomes, the height of which can reach thirty centimeters. At the slightest injury, a reddish-orange juice begins to ooze from these rhizomes - for this feature the North American Indians called this plant "blood root". And thanks to these rhizomes, sanguinaria grows well, forming fairly dense islands and impressive thickets.
The bluish-grayish leaves of sanguinaria are heart-shaped, and approximately in the middle of summer they begin to gradually die off. Usually they have three to nine lobes, rather large (their width can reach fifteen centimeters) and sit on small, but very strong petioles.
The snow-white flowers of the sanguinaria do not smell at all and reach seven centimeters in diameter, and their corollas consist of eight oval petals. You can admire the flowering of this beauty already in mid-April, but it only blooms for two or three weeks. Nevertheless, even after the end of flowering, sanguinaria does not lose its decorative effect at least until July - it is from this moment that its leaves begin to die off.
The fruits of sanguinaria have the appearance of fusiform, opening from the very bases of bivalve boxes, the length of which ranges from three and a half to six centimeters. And the color of the seeds of this plant can vary from reddish-orange tones to black, while all the seeds are decorated with vague mesh patterns.
The genus of sanguinaria includes one and only species - Canadian sanguinaria.
Where grows
Most often, sanguinaria can be found in North America - there it grows mainly in moist and shady deciduous forests. And it was from this continent that in the thirteenth century sanguinaria first came to the European botanical gardens - it began to spread from England, and then it gradually began to cover other countries.
Usage
In ornamental gardening, sanguinaria can be safely combined with both spring-flowering small-bulbous vegetation and early tulips or daffodils.
In addition, sanguinaria is very successfully used as a medicinal plant - in folk medicine it is used as a stimulating heart activity, an analgesic, tonic and abortive agent, as part of various cough medicines, as well as for pneumonia, with fever, against worms and for treating burns or ulcers. And this plant can also help repel various insects!
Growing and caring
Sanguinaria perfectly tolerates shade and grows well under the crowns of huge deciduous trees, however, in open sunny areas it will also grow no worse if it is provided with systematic and very abundant watering. As for the soils, this beauty will grow successfully on neutral, humus-rich, and acidic soils, but these soils must be well-drained.
Reproduction of sanguinaria occurs by segments of rhizomes, and it is best to start this process right from July, when the leaves of a beautiful plant begin to die off - by this time, renewal buds will already be formed on the rhizomes of the sanguinaria, and this to a large extent guarantees a successful transplant. But propagating sanguinaria by seeds is an extremely laborious activity: this is due to the extremely low germination of seeds. So, of course, you can try, but success in this case is not guaranteed.
