Description
(Nade Shiko)
The Japanese name translates as “Dianthus” in allusion to the appearance of the flower with its cut petal tips. This is a semi-double, with two or three circles of overlapping, broadly spoon-shaped petals in an intense shade of bright yellow. The flowers are large and open a pale greenish-yellow which soon matures to a golden yellow. The petals are flared with the petal-tips cut and lacerated into the treasured ‘eyelash’ structure of the Nadeshiko form. The centre of the flower bears a ring of golden anthers around a green-tinted yellow central boss. The undersides of the petals and calyx are purplish.
Gardening practice is to call all Japanese cultivars amurensis though it is more correctly “amurensis of Horticulture”.
They are all very early-flowering plants for a damp, humus-rich but well-drained, lightly-shaded spot. Adonis seem to resent transplanting even more than most other Ranunculaceae, a family notorious for their dislike of being moved. Please be patient with them (and with us) as this is down to evolution, not the nurseryman.
