Ipheion uniflorum 'Alberto Castillo'

Name: Ipheion uniflorum Alberto Castillo – Fleur étoilée printanière blanche
Brand: Ipheion
SKU: 56891737571701
Price: 6.6 EUR
Availability: InStock

€6,60

Organic

Sustainable

Locally grown

Ipheion uniflorum 'Alberto Castillo' is a beautiful white-flowered selection of the little bulbous plant known as the Spring Star.

The flowers are delicate and star-shaped, with a light sweet honey-like fragrance. They bloom continuously over the first few weeks in March above a dense tuft of leaves.

The leaves appear in the autumn and will disappear entirely in the summer - a survival strategy that allows this plant to sidestep the troubles of drought altogether by entering into a period of dormancy.

They will form a carpet over time, but you will only be able to sense the garlic aroma hiding in its leaves if and when you crush them.

Flowering	March, April, May
Flower Color	White
Frost Tolerance	-18°C
Size	15cm H x 30cm W
Soil	Dry, Moist
Origin	Argentina

€6,60

In stock

🪴9x9 cm

🚂 Ships across EU
🌱 Grown in our nursery

Originally an alpine from Argentina and Uruguay, Ipheion has since naturalized across Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand .

Ipheion uniflorum belongs to the Amaryllidaceae family, alongside garlic and onion. If you crush the leaves of this plant, you will be very strongly reminded of who her cousins are.

The cultivar 'Alberto Castillo' is a horticultural selection of Ipheion uniflorum, a small bulbous plant native to South America — more specifically the meadows and rocky slopes of Argentina — where it is also known as Triteleia uniflora.

Depending on the climate, flowering runs from February–March through to May. In late winter, solitary honey-scented flowers appear, 2–3 cm across, white with yellow stamens, held upright and opening into a six-petalled star. In colder climates, the long flowering season begins alongside the first crocuses, peaks in March and April, and draws to a close in May as summer warmth arrives.

In the early 1980s, Alberto Castillo, director of the Ezeiza Botanical Garden in Buenos Aires, stumbled upon this extraordinary plant growing in an abandoned garden in the city.

What caught his eye was its striking superiority over the common spring starflower: larger bulbs, heavier and more glaucous leaves, and flowers noticeably bigger and more substantial than the species — pure white, about 4cm across, each petal traced with a faint darker midrib, and carrying a sweet scent of violet rather than the honey fragrance typical of the species.

He collected it, gave it his name, and the plant made its way north. It was introduced to Britain by Broadleigh Gardens of Somerset in 1992, where plantsman Jack Elliott was among the first to grow it and write about it, championing it as something genuinely special.