Gloriosa superba – an enigmatic climber

Gloriosa superba is a very attractive and curious climbing herb with parallelly veined smooth leaves that are alternately arranged. The leaf tip is always coiled to form a climbing support. The large showy flowers are very characteristic with upturned wavy petals which are down-pointed to start with. The petals are with yellow basal half and red in the above half. The stamens too are special as they are long and spreading with prominent dangling anthers. Similar is the elongated style spreading to one side. The green capsular fruits are slightly elongate and obscurely trilobed having many seeds.

The plant can be propagated sexually by seed and vegetatively using the tubers. G. superba is poisonous, though with great market demand. It is cultivated as a crop on several parts of south India. Incidentally this is the state flower of Tamil Nadu. Green Ahalia is trying to propagate and conserve this medicinal plant in our gardens.

For more information e-mail us: greenahalia@ahhkv.org