categoryZEvergreen Evergreen List 

WINTER HELIOTROPE

Petasites fragrans

Daisy & Dandelion Family [Asteraceae]

month8apr month8may month8jun month8jul month8aug month8sep month8oct

category
category8Evergreen
 
status
statusZneophyte
 
flower
flower8lilac
 
inner
inner8white
 
morph
morph8actino
 
petals
petalsZ5
 
petals
petalsZmany
 
type
typeZclustered
 
stem
stem8round
 
smell
smell8vanill
vanilla
toxicity
toxicityZlowish
 
sex
sexZsterile
 
sex
sexZfemale
 UK only 
sex
sexZdioecious
 Elsewhere 

19th Feb 2017, a road verge. Photo: © Bastiaan Brak
A common plant found along roads about a month after the new year starts.


19th Feb 2017, a road verge. Photo: © Bastiaan Brak
The stems and leaves are hairy. The plant multiply branched in a short space at near the top.


19th Feb 2017, a road verge. Photo: © Bastiaan Brak
Sepal cup with numerous sepal teeth which are either green or a dark purple colour. The disc florets within the sepal cup are white to pink, with the top part, unusually for disc-florets, having long teeth which can be (as here) splayed out. Each disc floret has a central female part with a dark-purple sheath which has a club-like white stigmas projecting higher than the other flower parts. Winter Heliotrope is perhaps unique in the respect that there are no male florets - in fact there are no Winter Heliotrope plants in the UK which would be able to fertilise the female flowers: it spreads purely vegetatively.


18th Feb 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
Grows up to a foot high, being much shorter than Butterbur.


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
Starts flowering in November, five months before the similar Butterbur and has far fewer clusters of flowers, each set on a well separated stalk.


Photo: © John Phandaal Law
Growing amidst the leaves of other plants.


18th Feb 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
 Flowers are all female (male plants are not known in the British Isles) and pink to lilac in colour with some parts deep purple, others white. Which seems simple. But their sexuality is not as simple as all that. They do have male flowers as well, but those are all sterile! Some also have female lookee-likee flowers which are also sterile! However, there are also fertile female flowers amongst the florets. Life is complicated, isn't it.


18th Feb 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
Each individual flower in the bunch has five lilac petals, and a central deep purple part with extended white protuberance.


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
The flowers here look similar to the flowers on the male form of Butterbur (which, unlike Winter Heliotrope, has separate male and female flowered plants, both types being fertile).


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
The flowers are in more open and far fewer bunches than those of Butterbur.


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
But otherwise, the flowers look very similar, being mauve to lilac with white parts. Flower stalks hairy.


Photo: © RWD
Surrounding each bunch of flowers are several reddish-purple paper like bracts that are partly green.


Photo: © RWD
A single flower with five long tapering pink petals and a single central stamen wrapped in a purple covering and with a long white, but sterile, anther protruding.


18th Feb 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
The plant readily spreads vegetatively under the right conditions blanketing the ground.


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
The leaves are smaller and rounder than those of Butterbur and also do not grow to such massive proportions.


11th Feb 2010, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
The leaves are up to 20cm across with a satin sheen and have fine teeth but are not scalloped at the edges like those of Colt's-foot.


18th Feb 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
Leaves are a similar shape (but not size) to those of Garlic Mustard, with a rounded notch, but the teeth are finer. The remnants of a white netted veil are visible.


12th Mar 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter
A month later and they have withered.


12th Mar 2012, Carlingford Louth, Ireland. Photo: © Dermot Baxter


Not relation to : Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) or Winter Jasmine or any of the Hellebores nor Helleborines [plants with similar names]

Not to be semantically confused with :  Heliotrope, a gemstone and variety of  Chalcedony.

Easily mis-identified as : Butterbur but the flower spikes of Winter Heliotrope are much shorter and the leaves evergreen and much smaller and more rounded. The fertile flowers of Winter Heliotrope themselves are all female and similar in appearance to those of the female plants of Butterbur. Specimens of Winter Heliotrope with fertile male flowers do not grow in the UK, but both sterile male flowers (and some sterile female flowers) are present. Winter Heliotrope starts flowering up to 5 months sooner than Butterbur, in November the year before, and un-like Butterbur, the flowers are fragrant, and, according to various sources, smell of either vanilla or almonds.

This only applies to the UK. Elsewhere in the World they are fertile with both types of flowers (having both fertile male and fertile female flowers on the SAME plant). They are NOT native to the UK, but a neophyte. However, most neophytes don't have just one sex.

Un-like Butterbur where the flowers appear before the leaves, Winter Helitrope is evergreen (having leaves all year round).

Grows almost everywhere, but sparser in Scotland. Habitat is waysides and hedge banks, and is patch forming. Although perennial, it sometimes is without flowers even in Winter, its flowering season. In the UK, Winter Heliotrope exists as Female Only plants - there are no plants with fertile male flowers in the UK. But in the Wider World, excluding Britain, Winter heliotrope is dioecious, having male and female flowers but on separate plants - that is - elsewhere in the World it is dioecious.

The flowers follow the sun as that tracks across a winters day, hence the name Heliotrope which is derived from the Greek Helios (ηλιος) meaning sun and tropos (τροπος) meaning 'turn' or 'direction'.

PYRROLIZIDINE ALKALOIDS


Like Butterbur, it contains several poisonous Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids, in particular Senkirkine, Petasinine (not to be confused with a higher molecular weight pyrrolizidine alkaloid Petasitenine nor with the sesquiterpenoid, Petasin, although it does have one of the same angeloyl groups) and 7-Angeloyl-retronecine (aka 7-Angeloyl-Heliotridin). Apart from the double bond in one of the rings of 7-Angeloyl-Retronecine, the two are isomeric with one another.


  Petasites fragrans  ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ Asteraceae  

Distribution
 family8Daisy & Dandelion family8Asteraceae
 BSBI maps
genus8Petasites
Petasites
(Butterburs)

WINTER HELIOTROPE

Petasites fragrans

Daisy & Dandelion Family [Asteraceae]