Description
(Chichibu Beni)
One of our newer Japanese introductions this has large, open, orange to copper red flowers produced in abundance very early in the spring. This is among the deepest and most intense of the copper-coloured cultivars currently available in western horticulture. The edges of the petals are rounded and entire, a characteristic of this strain. Behind the flower, is a backing of deep purple-infused sepals which form a perfect coppery-purple foil for the blooms.
A sumptuous and very attractive cultivar, for a damp, humus-rich, well-drained, lightly shaded spot.
Chichibu is the name of a mountainous district in Japan, Beni is “deep red”. Although we once thought that this was a clonal hybrid it is NOT a clone as it is known in western gardens (i.e. it is NOT propagated from one plant, vegetatively). I am told that in Japan the name is something of a cover-all, horticultural name for all of the very similar, orange-red Adonis which originated in the OkuChichibu Mountains. The garden plants which have been propagated from these appear to be a grex, wild-hybrid of several, very similar, forms involving multiflora and ramosa, in its putative parentage.
We have in the past used the name amurensis in keeping with present horticultural naming, but it is correctly “amurensis of Horticulture”.
Introduced to our lists June 2015, re-introduced in September 2020.
