A hardy, tropical climber from South America
Plant collecting in Rio
On the 14th November 1768, 79 days after the Endeavour set sail from Plymouth on Captain Cook’s first voyage around the world (the story of which is told in a previous blog post – 250 years of Endeavour), the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander arrived at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It was their first encounter with the tropical forest, full of tantalising plants then largely unknown to science. Unfortunately, the Portugese governor was suspicious of the motives of the English ship and wouldn’t allow them to land, much to the frustration of the botanists on board.
So desperate were they to examine the exciting vegetation they could only glimpse through the ship’s telescopes that they resorted to underhand means to collect specimens. First, they sent servants to bring back specimens for them, but the temptation grew too great and in the end they took to creeping out of the ship at night, and embarking on illicit nocturnal excursions. The 300 specimens they gathered included Bomarea edulis, and the specimen and the beautiful watercolour painting of it by the ship’s artist Sydney Parkinson, still survive at the Natural History Museum in London.
Bomarea is a genus of climbing or scrambling plants closely related to Alstroemeria, in the Alstroemeriaceae family. They can be distinguished from Alstroemeria by their climbing habit and their drooping, radially symmetrical flowers (Alstroemeria flowers are held upright and have bilateral, or mirror-image symmetry). The genus is distributed from Mexico in the north to Argentina and Chile in the south, following and restricted to the highlands of the Andes mountain range along the western edge of South America.
Tasty tubers
So how did Banks and Solander come to collect a specimen of Bomarea edulis in Rio, thousands of miles to the east of the Andes? The clue is in the name: the species name “edulis” meaning “edible”. All Bomarea have tuberous roots, but those of B. edulis are particularly large and starchy, and can be eaten roasted or boiled like potatoes or Jerusalem artichokes. A mature plant can bear up to 20 root tubers, each up to 5cm in diameter. It is thought that in pre-Colombian times it was cultivated throughout South America as a food source by pre-hispanic cultures, and that this could be the reason for the much wider distribution of this species than any other in the genus (occurring for instance in the Antilles, Guyanas and Brazil).
It certainly seems well-suited to cultivation: of several species of Bomarea we grow, B. edulis is by far the most vigorous and so far is the only one to flower, which it does prettily and prolifically from July to autumn. It grows best in partial shade in a humus-rich, well-draining soil that’s kept moist, and looks fantastic climbing up through shrubs and small trees, as it would do in its native habitat. It dies down to the ground each winter, but the roots survive freezing temperatures (including the Beast from the East this year) and new growth starts appearing as soon as the temperatures warm up in early summer, though be warned that slugs and snails are very partial to the tender young shoots.
I value the showy coral pink and yellow flowers too much to dig up the plant in search of tubers, though maybe one day I will sample them, or try it on the allotment.
Your Bomarea edulis is a stunner! I’ve got an unidentified Bomarea growing up one of my Trachycarpus, it’s setting seed. Have you ever had any luck propagating them via seed?
I tried this year and in October/November planted about 40 red seeds not expecting them to germinate. I now have about 30 seedlings with more coming through. They took about 2months to show bit I have just transplanted them to larger pots, I am not sure how many will survive, I am no expert. I bought the original plant at a local plant fair about 6 years ago, it is planted in a sun trap but facing north east so no direct sun and I wanted to plant in a sunny position. Heeding views on the internet I was wary of transplanting due to tubers and hoped to have new seedlings!!! I live in Somerset. This year I had about 8 separate stems, in the first year 1, but it flowered then and has gradually increased.
That’s interesting to hear that you’ve managed to germinate some seed. My plant actually produced some seeds for the first time in the autumn, so I might try sowing them too if it’s not too late!
I sowed 12 seeds in November 2016. I’m in central north London A few seedlings appeared the following spring and sulked until 2019, when they finally took off (repotted in better compost, I suspect). This year there are seven string stems and I’m starting to hope for flowers. I’d like to plant them out, but need to find a suitable spot with enough sun in my multi-storey, slightly Permaculture-style woodland garden, with sun-loving evergreen canopy and shade-loving understorey. And give them a suitable shrub or tree to climb.
They flowered very satisfactorily last summer and I now have my first crop of seed pods dehiscing, which I will try to germinate.