Clerodendrum indicum

Clerodendrum indicum, the Turk's turban, is a bold, tropical-looking perennial that stages two very different shows in a single season. First come tall, nearly unbranched stems, ringed with long narrow leaves and topped in summer by great airy sprays of long-tubed white flowers, shooting outward like a burst of fireworks, which earns the plant its other names, tube flower and skyrocket. Then, as the blooms fade, the real surprise arrives.

Each spent flower leaves behind a shining, blue-black berry cradled in an enlarged, star-shaped calyx that flushes deep red, and it is this jewel-like fruit, not the flower, that gives the Turk's turban its name and its longest season of beauty. Native to India, Myanmar, and tropical Asia, the plant has an exotic, almost theatrical presence, and has naturalized here and there across the warm Southeast. Butterflies and bees work the white summer flowers.

In frost-free gardens Turk's turban grows woody and shrub-like, but through most of the South the plant behaves as a die-back perennial, cut down by frost and resprouting vigorously each spring to bloom by late summer. Given full sun, rich soil, and ample water, the stems shoot up fast in the heat. One caution belongs on the label: the plant spreads by suckers and can colonize a bed if left unchecked, so site the Turk's turban where that vigor is welcome, or contain the roots.

Use Clerodendrum indicum at the back of a sunny border or as a bold tropical accent, where the skyrocket flowers and the red-and-blue fruit can carry a planting from midsummer into fall. In its native range the leaves have long been used in traditional medicine for asthma and other complaints of the chest, a piece of the plant's history rather than any advice for the garden. For drama on a big scale in a hot, sunny spot, few perennials deliver quite like the Turk's turban.