Not to be semantically confused with : Rhubarb [a plant with similar name]

Easily mis-identified as : Brazilian Giant Rhubarb, but that is larger still, with leaves often larger than 2m across, and has reddish-tipped bristles and spines on the leaf stems rather than green. The flowering spikes (really upright panicles) of Brazilian Giant Rhubarb are also longer at up to 1.2m rather than less than 1m.

The leaves bear some some similarities to those of : Butterbur, but are far larger.

It is native to Brazil, but is grown in the UK as a garden plant, mainly for big gardens such as parks, in which setting you are much more likely to see it. When planted in the UK, it does spread a little, but does not behave rampantly like it does in its native country, where it is in places out of control! Little else can take root under the darkness cast by its enormous leaves.

As the scientific name, tinctoria, suggests, the plant yields a dye, in this case it is the roots from which a black dye can be extracted which was used for dying leather black. The root contains 9% tannin.

The roots contain glands that contain a cyanobacterium called Nostoc, which fixes nitrogen for the plant. It is thought to be the only flowering plant in the world which has entered into a symbiotic relationship with a cyanobacterium; all other nitrogen fixing plants rely on eukaryotic bacteria to fix nitrogen rather than prokaryotic bacteria. The plant gives the cyanobacterium carbon compounds in return for soluble nitrogen extracted from the air.

The seed head produces about 80,000 seeds.

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