Lobelia roughii. Scree Lobelia, Rough's Lobelia
New Zealand has long been known to have native plants belonging to more well-known genus of common garden plants.
Lobelia is a large worldwide genus and in New Zealand we have 12 species of lobelia all of which are quite small and 5 of them live in alpine areas of New Zealand.
Lobelia roughii is one of the more unusual looking alpine species with its wide, fleshy looking, curved leaves with few deeply toothed light bronze coloured points on each leaf making a quite spectacular show when you find them. There is a dark purple tinge to the slightly fleshy leaves.
Small red coloured buds emerge from between the leaves to open with white or even reddish flowers on short stalks.
It occurs on the dryer greywacke mountains from Nelson to North Otago. It is said to be uncommon but on parts of Mt Hutt (Canterbury) there is a good population growing on some of the scree slopes.
Lobelia is named after an early botanist Mathias de l'Obel, Mathias de Lobel or Matthaeus Lobelius (1538 – 1616) (click for link to his profile) and L. roughii was named after a Captain David Rough, (1815-1899) the first harbour master for the post of Auckland, who later became Collector of Customs in Nelson, and he was an excellent early plant collector in the Nelson mountains. According to Flora of NZ (1961) he collected a specimen (Type K) of this in the Nelson Mountains.
As with all scree plants they are difficult to grow in the home garden unless special care is undertaken to recreate mountain scree conditions usually in a pot or similar.
Lobelia is a large worldwide genus and in New Zealand we have 12 species of lobelia all of which are quite small and 5 of them live in alpine areas of New Zealand.
Lobelia roughii is one of the more unusual looking alpine species with its wide, fleshy looking, curved leaves with few deeply toothed light bronze coloured points on each leaf making a quite spectacular show when you find them. There is a dark purple tinge to the slightly fleshy leaves.
Small red coloured buds emerge from between the leaves to open with white or even reddish flowers on short stalks.
It occurs on the dryer greywacke mountains from Nelson to North Otago. It is said to be uncommon but on parts of Mt Hutt (Canterbury) there is a good population growing on some of the scree slopes.
Lobelia is named after an early botanist Mathias de l'Obel, Mathias de Lobel or Matthaeus Lobelius (1538 – 1616) (click for link to his profile) and L. roughii was named after a Captain David Rough, (1815-1899) the first harbour master for the post of Auckland, who later became Collector of Customs in Nelson, and he was an excellent early plant collector in the Nelson mountains. According to Flora of NZ (1961) he collected a specimen (Type K) of this in the Nelson Mountains.
As with all scree plants they are difficult to grow in the home garden unless special care is undertaken to recreate mountain scree conditions usually in a pot or similar.