Plants in our sales nursery – Trevesia palmata (Araliaceae)

Background

Dokmai Garden has a tiny nursery with plants for sale. We call it “Connoisseur’s Club”, as we can not mass produce cheap and common ornamental plants. We focus on rare plants hardly anybody else sells here in Chiang Mai, and we wish to promote indigenous plants. Occasionally we have very common plants for sale too.

Our plants have tags with price and scientific names, something which is unusual elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Our website has a pdf-file with a list of most of our plants for sale, including price and a brief description.

In addition to this information, we now launch a series of blogs with illustrations and further information about the plants we keep for sale. Today’s presentation is Trevesia palmata.

Trevesia palmata is native to the Chiang Mai province. You can find it in moist evergreen riverine situations. Therefore, this plant is suitable as an understorey plant in a shady part of your garden where you have access to irrigation. Its ornamental value is the peculiar shape of the large leaves. The shoots are edible, and you may still see shoots for sale at e.g. the Hang Dong market. Like so many other members of the ginseng family, it has medicinal properties. In this case, the plant was used to treat venereal diseases.  The flowers are greenish-yellowish, more peculiar than attractive. 

Eric Danell