Description
Asarum sakawanum has larger flowers than many species with longer petals which are more widely separated. This clone Takasago (amongst other translations, this name covers an international flavour corporation, a city in Hyogo, Japan and the Japanese name for Taiwan during the Edo period) has very lightly patterned leaves which are marked with diffuse zones of silvery-sage-green with a few smaller splashes, or spots, here and there of silver, all over a darker, shiny background.
The clone is selected for its lemon-white flowers, which are lovely. The flowers have lost their purple pigments, so they present as near white to whitish-yellow. They are typical sakawanum, in both size and shape, except for the lovely, pale, flower colour. The petals are nicely folded along the edges in big folds and a twist in the petiole means that the very inflated tube is often facing downwards while the flowers align along the soil surface, facing you as you look at them. Just by way of relieving the overall appearance of pale and pallid lemons, limes and whites, the flowers have a diffuse sprinkling of tiny purplish tufts around the back of the floral opening. This is just visible in our picture.
A lovely albino cultivar, different and distinct from the other white and albino forms both of sakawanum.
New to our lists in March 2020
