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Ligularia dentata

Ligularia dentata

golden groundsel, leopard plant

Common name golden groundsel, leopard plant

Family asteraceae

Life cycle perennial (Z3)

Flowers orange-yellow (summer)

Size 3'

Light part-full shade

Cultural notes moist soil

I consider this primarily a foliage plant - its wonderful large heart-shaped, purple-tinged leaves create a bold accent in shady parts of our garden. Some gardeners actually dislike the flowers and remove them, but I enjoy the bit of color they provide in our shady corner.
After our original specimen expired after a good number of years, I established some new ones from seed. As you can see in the photo at right, the flowers on the new crop have a slightly different shape, and a brighter shade of yellow. So there is some variability within the species – or perhaps mine have derived from different species or hybrids.

We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston.

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PlantLinks to other web pages about Ligularia dentata

Visitors to this page have left the following comments

Robert	May 17, 2009	what is best to feed them it seems like the a slight acidic soil
Jan	Aug 29, 2009	Squirrels found my Ligularia's leaves tasty. GRRR. They haven't removed all the leaves, but all the big ones.
Deb	Sep 24, 2010	Thank you so much! I have been searching for identification of this plant in my garden...this is the first picture I have found that provides an exact identification! I have three plants in my shade garden and forgot how they got there! The whole process was very educational though, I learned a lot about this family of plants, Asteracea! Can I collect seeds for planting? In my experience, Ligularia make seedheads full of duds, with only a few viable seeds. Those will be obvious because they are much more substantial (slightly plump, not easily bent) than the duds. They are fairly easy to germinate, though.
Janice	Sep 15, 2011	How do I harvest my Ligularia seeds? Do they have to freeze before I should plant them? What do they look like? Any information would be appreciated. Thank you Ligularia produces a lot of duds, if you're lucky there will be some fat dark brown seeds in between the many thin chaffy particles when you take apart the spent flowerheads. In my experience they don't need cold treatment – fresh seeds germinate without much trouble at room temperature.
Ron Carter	Sep 20, 2011	Hi, I want to add three of these to a large shade bed. Are there any special planting instructions? All I can see to find are comments about keeping them well watered. Best Regards, Ron Carter Yep, consistent moisture is the most important requirement. I'm not aware of any special planting requirements – this time of year would be fine, I think.
Jennifer Wingate Richmond Hill Ont. Can.	Aug 20, 2013	I have had great success by "bagging" my ligularias: line a large planting hole with a scrap of pond liner or heavy plastic, piercing it with several holes, add soil well enriched with home made compost and plant your ligularia. I have two of the spike flowered ligs. and this year I am trying out Dragon wings or Dragon breath a shorter form with deeply serrated leaves and earlier spike flowers. Still following your journal and useful references, thanks. Great idea. Now if I could ever manage to get around to that... Thanks for sharing!
patchesnutt@gmail.com	Apr 16, 2018	We're planting ligularia this week (April 16th) in North Carolina (in pods under seed growing lamp)some seed harvested from 2017 garden and some seed purchased. Let's see how this turns out....you have any suggestions or predictions? Given fresh, viable seed, ligularia is easy to germinate and grown into a good-size seedling. My challenge has always been to get them to live through the summer that follows. They definitely require consistent moisture, and prefer a mostly shady location. If you can provide that, success should follow. Good luck.
Carey	Feb 25, 2022	Odd that you don't grow it in Houston. We grow it in New Orleans under almost the identical climactic conditions. There are a ton of things we grew in Pennsylvania that I don't grow in Houston. That doesn't necessarily mean it cannot be grown in Houston. Anyway, I don't have the shade for ligularias in my current garden.

Seed-starting details for this plant

Seed from 'Othello' from '00 trade. Baggy 35F (9w) - 70F (1 seed G, 10d)
Seed from 'Mixed leaf forms' from '08 trade. Baggy 35F (80%G, 43-57d)
Seed for 'Britt Marie Crawford' from '10 trade. Baggy 70F (27%G, 11-14d)
Seed for 'Britt Marie Crawford' from '14 trade. Baggy 70F (70%G, 7-21d)

Sets lots of duds - only fat seeds are viable.

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