Autumn favourite: Aconitum
Posted by editor on Monday, 20 September 2010
The hooded, helmet-shaped flowers, which consist of sepals rather than petals, give aconitums the common name of monkshood. It is also known as wolfsbane, leopard’s bane, women’s bane, Devil’s helmet or blue rocket – and is one of our favourite late-flowering herbaceous perennials.
Not only do we love its colour – various shades of purple and mauve, though it does also come in white forms – we also love its stature (1.5 to 2m or more!), adding a certain dramatic grandeur to the late summer border.
Aconitum are also highly poisonous, as to some degree are other members of the same buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) family – larkspur, Delphinium and Aquilegia amongst others.
It is tolerant of some shade, and makes a great cut flower.
Tags: 'Must have' Plants, Autumn time, Perennials
This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 1:07 am and is filed under Lost the plot, Plants & Planting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.