Indian Pink

Description

Botanical Name:    Spigelia marilandica

Common Name:  Indian Pink, Woodland Pinkroot

Description:  This is a stunningly beautiful Florida native perennial for the shade/part shade area of your garden.  Its native habitat is in upland woods, bluffs, and slope forests. It prefers growing in loamy or sandy, acidic soils. It can be grown in a bog, pond, or water garden, but will also adapt to a regular gardening environment of rich, moist, well-drained soil. I wouldn’t plant it in an area that stays very dry for an extended period of time. It matures to 2-3 feet tall, and is a long-lived, clump forming plant. The red and yellow flowers bloom spring into summer, with occasional blooms in the fall. Makes a good cut flower. Can be grown in containers. Is deer resistant. Is rather slow growing its first couple of seasons because it is putting all of its energy into growing a good root system. After that though, you’ll see faster growth. Would be gorgeous planted with Southern Shield fern, columbine, green and gold, or woodland phlox.

‘Its flowers are tubular, about 2 inches long and erect. Its petals are scarlet red on the outside and bright yellow on the inside. Its wide leaves are oval in shape, sessile, and oppositely arranged. Its seeds are contained in dehiscent capsules that, when ripe, will pop open and propel the seeds well beyond the mother plant.’ ~Florida Wildflower Foundation ~

Hummingbirds are the primary pollinators, but other insects, including butterflies, also visit its gorgeous flowers. Birds like to eat the fruits that develop after it is finished blooming.

Indian Pink is native to eight Florida counties in the panhandle.

Add this one to your poison garden because all Spigelia species are poisonous and may cause serious if not fatal sickness if eaten. It is a source of strychnine poison.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water.  Low/no tolerance of salty wind or direct salt spray.

This plant in 1-gallon containers is 5-10 inches tall.

Plant Lore:  Only four Spigelia species are native to Florida, and two are endangered: gentian pinkroot (S. gentianoides), which has pink flowers, and Florida pinkroot (S. loganioides), which has white flowers. Florida Pinkroot is endemic to only five counties in Central Florida. Genus name honors Adrian van der Spiegel (1578-1625), professor of anatomy at Padua. Specific epithet means of Maryland.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 9