LION'S EARS IN THE MOUNTAINS
Don Gonzalo tells me that the plants are medicinal, but he's forgotten what they're used for. A bit of Googling reveals uses ranging from being a digestive aid to curing leprosy, to being smoked as a hallucinogenic. You can review a whole page of uses -- where it's called Wild Dagga -- at http://www.iamshaman.com/dagga/folkuse.htm. This is such an eye-catching plant that it deserves to be planted more often, at least in southern gardens. It takes a long time to flower and seems a bit intolerant to colder climates. Several gardeners have posted comments on acquiring seeds and the plant's growing needs at http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1048/index.html. |
Very prettily flowering in most of
the small mountain towns near here these days is a six-ft-tall Mint Family member whose
stiff stems bear at their tops two or more widely-spaced, baseball-size spheres of
reddish-orange flowers. The plants are similar to red-blossomed Bee Balm grown in northern
gardens, but these plants are much more robust. In the villages they've escaped from
gardens and grow weedily along roadsides. The plants, originally from Southern Africa, are
known in English as Lion's Ears and Wild Daggas. They're LEONOTIS LEONURUS, and you can
see a picture of flowers from a plant at Soledad de Guadalupe above.