The American columbo in our Mountain Habitat starting to put up its first – and last – flowering stalk, April 16, 2024.
Inset: Closeup of an American columbo flower (what we have to look forward to!); photo by Richard and Teresa Ware.
We’re about to witness an event that hasn’t happened at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in decades, if ever: an American columbo flowering.
After spending 19 years in our Mountain Habitat as an unassuming rosette of leaves near the ground, one of our American columbos is about to put out a spectacular flowering stalk for the first and only time. Then, after reproducing, it will die.
A native member of the gentian family, American columbo (Frasera caroliniensis) can spend 30 years or more storing up energy for one show-stopping flowering event. When it finally has enough energy, it puts up a huge flowering stalk that can pass six feet in height and contain as many as 100 flowers. Individual American columbo plants die after putting on this exhausting display, but not before their flowers have the opportunity to be pollinated and develop into seeds that will form the next generation.
“I’ve been waiting for this since 2005,” says Chris Liloia, NCBG habitat gardens curator. She planted several American columbos in our Mountain Habitat that year, grown from seeds collected in 1993 from the home garden of the first director of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, Ritchie Bell. We don’t know the exact year they germinated, but they’re at least 19 years old.
Chris says she was sure they were all going to bloom in the spring of 2020, when our display gardens were shut down because of the pandemic. “It was a huge relief” when that didn’t happen: it meant the public wouldn’t miss this once-in-a-generation event.
American columbo grows in rich forests in eastern and central North America, especially those on top of rocks rich in iron, magnesium, or calcium; here in North Carolina, it grows only in the mountains.
We’re expecting just one of our six American columbos to bloom this year. We don’t know for sure when it will start, but we’ll track its status here so you know when to come see it.
Friday, April 19: Stalk still growing. Not blooming yet.