Moltkia suffruticosa
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Moltkia suffruticosa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Pulmonaria suffruticosa L.
- Moltkia graminifolia (Viv.) Nyman
- Lithospermum graminifolium Viv.
A low, semi-evergreen shrub of tufted habit 6 to 18 in. high when in flower; young shoots, leaves, flower-stalks, and calyx all covered with appressed silky grey hairs. Leaves linear, pointed, the basal ones up to 41⁄2 in. long, 1⁄8 in. or less wide, those of the flowering stems 1 to 2 in. long, silvery beneath. Flowers borne at the top of a leafy stalk 4 to 8 in. high in a branched pendulous cluster 1 to 21⁄2 in. wide; they are blue with a tinge of purple (pink in the bud state), about 1⁄2 in. long; calyx-lobes linear, stamens about as long as the corolla or rather shorter. The branches of the inflorescence often curve outwards and have the flowers set on the top, as is common in the borage family. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 394.
Native of Italy; put into commerce by Messrs Backhouse of York in 1888. H. Correvon in The Gardener’s Chronicle (2 April 1910), p. 212, writes: ‘I was once ascending Monte Summano, near Vicenza, when my eyes were suddenly arrested by a slope covered with a glorious azure of blue flowers. Judge my surprise when I recognized an old friend in Lithospermum graminifolium. It seemed as if the whole mountain were covered with it.’
The plant is essentially one for a sunny place in the rock garden. M. petraea is easily distinguished from it by its shorter, comparatively broader leaves and well exposed stamens.