Description
Astrantia ‘Hadspen Blood’
Regarded as perhaps the darkest red Astrantia with a superb maroon/mahogany tipped red collar. Dark maroon stems and similarly tinted foliage. 50cm. At its best in June but smaller flushes of flowers reoccur throughout the season. Worth deadheading to encourage new flowers and to prevent inferior seedlings taking over the clump. For sun or partial shade. Responds to good treatment and feeding. originally raised by Nori Pope in 1988 at Hadspen Gardens in Somerset by crossing Astrantia major with Astrantia maxima.
Astrantia like rich living. To get the best flower size and quality out of them, either feed them or better still divide and replant every 2 or 3 years to maintain their vigour.
‘Astrantias have a quaint beauty of their own’ – William Robinson.
Masterwort, Mountain Sanicle
This i one of two Genera, (along with Eryngium), that you may be surprised 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. They produce flowers 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. They tolerate 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. They produce dense spreading crowns and make excellent ground cover.
Most plants encountered will be forms of Astrantia major. However, 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 Nori and Sandra Pope crossed Astrantia major and Astrantia maxima at Hadspen Garden in Somerset to produce the lovely Astrantia ‘Hadspen Blood’.
Naming
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
Umbelliferae (Apiaceae)
