Tibouchina urvilleana, the princess flower or glory bush, is a Brazilian subtropical grown for some of the most saturated purple flowers in the garden. Soft, velvety, prominently veined leaves clothe the arching stems, and against that green the large, five-petaled, royal-purple blooms, each with a spray of curved violet stamens, seem almost to glow. In all but essentially frost-free areas the shrub grows as a dieback perennial, returning from the roots each spring.
American basswood is one of the great shade and honey trees of eastern North America, a fast, stately deciduous tree with large, heart-shaped, softly toothed leaves and a broad, rounded, generous crown. Tilia americana has been cherished by Indigenous peoples, European settlers, and naturalists alike, and goes by a string of names: linden, bee tree, and lime, though the tree is no relation to the citrus lime. In late spring and early summer, hanging clusters of pale yellow, sweetly fragrant flowers open and hum with bees.
Hardiness
Zones 3–8
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
60–80 ft.
Spread
20–30 ft.
Bloom
Yellow
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
mental & emotional well-being, respiratory support, digestive health
Confederate jasmine, or star jasmine, is one of the best-loved evergreen vines of the warm South, prized for glossy dark leaves and clouds of small, star-shaped, intensely fragrant flowers. The common form wears white blooms, but this selection, which Woodlanders offers as 'Mandianum' and which may be the cultivar 'Star of Toscana', opens flowers in shades of creamy to clear yellow, an unusual and welcome color in the tribe.
'Madison' is the cold-hardy Confederate jasmine, the selection that carries the beloved evergreen vine a full zone north of where the tribe usually stops. Vigorous and twining, with glossy dark leaves and the powerfully fragrant, white, star-shaped flowers that make star jasmine famous, this form has proved hardy into USDA zone 7, well beyond the reach of the standard Trachelospermum jasminoides.
Tricyrtis is a small genus of woodland lilies from the Himalayas and eastern Asia, and this plant, almost certainly Tricyrtis formosana, carries the whole strange charm of the group in a single late-season flower. The botanical name joins the Greek treis, three, with kyrtos, humped or swollen, for the three little nectar sacs that bulge at the base of each bloom, a detail worth crouching down to find. The species epithet formosana points to Formosa, the old name for Taiwan, where these toad lilies grow on shaded, humus-rich slopes. The common name is the odd one: garden lore holds that hunters of the Philippine forests once rubbed the flowers' juice on their hands to make frogs and toads easier to grab, and the freckled, amphibian mottling of the petals has kept the name ever since.
Tripterygium regelii is a big, rambling, almost vine-like shrub from the temperate woodlands of Japan, Korea, and Manchuria, closely related to the celebrated thunder god vine of Chinese medicine. The genus name is a piece of plain description: from the Greek treis, three, and pteryx, a wing, for the papery three-winged fruits that hang in pale green clusters after flowering. The species honors Eduard von Regel, the nineteenth-century botanist who directed the St. Petersburg botanical garden. The English name, Regel's threewingnut, keeps both the man and the winged nutlet in view.
Tulbaghia violacea, the plant gardeners know as society garlic, is a clump-forming perennial from the summer-dry grasslands of southern Africa, ranging from the Little Karoo through the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal. The genus honors Ryk Tulbagh, the eighteenth-century Dutch governor of the Cape of Good Hope, while the species name violacea simply means violet, for the color of the flowers. The common name is a small joke: the leaves carry a clear garlic scent, but a gentler, more sociable one than true garlic, said to be polite enough for company.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
1–2 ft.
Spread
1–2 ft.
Bloom
Purple
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
respiratory support, digestive health, immune support
