Astrantia
To help you choose between the many different forms of this lovely plant, I’ve put them all together on one page for you to see. If you see a variety here that doesn’t appear in the catalogue, then please give us a ring and we’ll tell you if it is the production cycle.
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Astrantia – Masterwort, Mountain Sanicle
‘Astrantias have a quaint beauty of their own’ – William Robinson.
One of two Genera, (along with Eryngium), that you may be suprised to find classified in the Umbelliferae (Apiaceae), along with carrots, fennel and cow parsley. However if you realise that each flower is in fact a flower head and then explode that out, the similarities soon become clear. The flowers are produced over a very extended season, from Spring into Summer and dry very well.
Astrantia are natives of alpine meadows and light woodland and prefer a moisture retentive soil. Having said that, they are the most obliging of plants and will grow in a wide variety of sites from sun to shade, moist to fairly dry. In a light woodland situation they will seed moderately freely, producing a drift of plants in a delightful range of flower shades. The wild plant is not common and not native to Britain, but has naturalised in one or two grassy areas.
Most plants encountered will be forms of Astrantia major, but we also offer the lovely and more spreading Astrantia maxima with its larger heads of sugary pink with flatter, broader bracts. Hybrids are rare, but the lovely Astrantia ‘Hadspen Blood’, produced at Hadspen Garden in Somerset by Nori and Sandra Pope, is said to be a cross between Astrantia major and Astrantia maxima.
They produce dense spreading crowns and make excellent ground cover.
There may be two (or three) derivations for the name Astrantia, either from the Latin ‘Aster’ – a star, in allusion to the starry flowers, or from the Greek ‘astron’ – a star, and ‘anti’ – like, or alternatively as a corruption of ‘Magisterantia’ – masterwort, a name given to it believing it to be bit of a cure-all.
Masterwort can also refer to the plant Imperatoria ostruthium
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