Ophiopogon

A truly fantastic mondo grass, and unlike Kelly you're gonna be very hard-pressed to make me say those words again. Umbraticola itself is easily among the supreme members of the genus with its glossy blue fruit, lacey foliage, and extremely compact form. This selection adds the eye-popping lemon lime combo of bright solid yellow and dark green streaking that's fairly stable and easily purified when it goes South. You could bottle this up, carbonate it and sell it under an ever changing assortment of test-audience approved brand names. Though you wouldn't make much money given the glacially slow pace by which it multiplies. Good thing we never were ones for mass marketing.

Our collection from Guizhou in an area famed for its vast diversity and density of Rhododendron species. It was really quite staggering to see the Rhododendrons dominate the landscape even in the fall when all was out of flower. This little Mondo Grass grew as part of the herbaceous understory and had narrow evergreen leaves to 6" with 8" flower stems bearing up to 7 glossy blue-black fruits. Part of our mission here at the nursery is to provide wild-sourced plants in genera that is confused taxonomically in hopes more light can be shed. A portion of the proceeds goes to the Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.