Cultivation of Mandragora officinarum

[Rodger Whitlock]

According to Miller's Garden Dictionary (a pre-Linnean work from about 1730), it's important to sow fresh seed. When I first started fiddling with mandragora, I could find this advice nowhere else.

Sow the seed in deep pots to accommodate the long taproot that forms. Seed germinates in the spring, and may be delayed by a year (possibly longer) even from a summer sowing. Leave the seedlings in their pot for a couple of years, and give the young seedlings protection overhead from excessive winter wet, also from sub-freezing temperatures.

In a warm climate, sowing in situ may be preferable to pot sowing.

When you go to plant out your young plants (no shrieks, moans, or screams occur, nor is a dog required in the process, so Lesley's Teddy can go back to sleep now), plant them a little deeper than you think you should, with the growing point below soil level. Back-fill the depression around the crown when your mandrake goes dormant for the winter.

My experience is that for the first few years, the crown rots every year during the winter, and new growth only appears after it has callused over. Eventually the plant positions the crown to its satisfaction and begins to grow well without crown rot.

I have mandragora both in sun and shade and cannot say which it prefers. Perhaps what it prefers is dappled shade.

Good wintertime drainage is desirable.

The taxonomy of Mandragora is, afaict (as far as I can tell), in a state of disarray. Of my plants, all grown from seed as Mandragora officinarum, one is clearly distinct from the others, having purplish tinged flowers (green in the others) and flat leaves (much larger and rumpled like Swiss chard in the others) of a darker green with a metallic overcast (plain green in the others). I suspect the one plant to be Mandragora autumnalis.

I once grew Mandragora offcinarum ssp. haussknechtii from RHS seed. Brian Mathew saw it and said it looked like the name was right, but I do not know what this taxon's distinguishing characteristics are. Regrettably, I lost those plants when I moved 21 years ago and have never again seen seed of that taxon offered. If anyone is growing it, either from the RHS or the Hardy Plant Society (to which I donated seed in the 1980s), I would be grateful for some fresh seed.

Mandragora is not, and never can be, a pretty or beautiful plant, resembling nothing so much as a Swiss chard gone to the dark side. It is truly a plant "for the gardens of the curious."

[Tony Willis]

Rodger

interesting comments on this plant.Mine a picture of which is attached is grown from seed given me by Rosemary Verey  when we were visiting Barnsley House where it was growing in the border. It was a completely unripe fruit which had become detached. I ripened it on the windowsill and then sowed the seeds. My plant is many years old and I noticed this spring it had a self sown seedling nearby. The crown rots of some years but it soon comes back. This is its best year for fruits.

When I was in southern Turkey near Kahramanmaras in May 2001 I saw a damp hillside covered with small crinkly rosettes and each had a nest of small yellow fruits within the rosette.Just like a birds nest and very exciting to see. There were two forms and I collected seed of both which I am now growing. I must confess I have not treated them well until last year and this spring the first one produced a couple of tiny purple flowers which did not set fruit. They are summer dormant and come back into growth in the autumn. At the moment I am growing them in deep pots underglass.Having looked at your pictures on the PBS site I now think they may be Mandrago autumnalis.

[Paddy Tobin]

Rodger & Tony,

I have grown M. officinalis for many years but find that it sets fruit only sparodically for me. Good growth each year, good healthy foliage etc. Any suggestions?

Paddy

[Tony Willis]

Paddy

sorry but mine performs the same as yours.I think this is only the third time in 10 years it has set fruit and only a couple before this. My only thought is for us we had a very hard winter and so it was late into growth and flowering. This may have aided pollination as we had no frost once it was growing.

[fermi de Sousa]

Sorry to resurrect an old topic but I just noticed flowers buds on our Mandragora autumnalis!


cheers
fermi

[Anthony Darby]

The seeds I got last year from a kind Forumist have germinated with a vengeance!

[Lesley Cox]

I had a couple of seedlings last spring, probably from the same kind Forumist but nothing more since. I'm hoping this coming spring will produce some more.

[Rodger Whitlock]

Sorry to resurrect an old topic but I just noticed flowers buds on our Mandragora autumnalis

Now that's interesting! I have five established mandrakes grown from exchange seed so many years ago that the paper records were used for house breaking pet dinosaurs. (IOW, no certain memory which exchange they came from.)

One is different from the others, and I've often wondered if it were M. autumnalis, but for one detail: it flowers in late winter/early spring.

Looking at Fermides' photograph, I recognize my offbeat mandrake: the leaf shape is the same, instead of looking like a misbred swiss chard having a bad hair day. Now I know that les botanistes will poo-poo the idea of using leaf shape to distinguish species, but in this case I'm going to do it.

IOW (for the second time in one posting) I consider my wonderings as confirmed.

[fermi de Sousa]

Managed to get a pic of one flower open!




cheers
fermi