Lobelia tupa (Devil’s tobacco)
This perennial upright lobelia was a sacred plant for the Mapuche native people of central Chile because of its stimulant and hallucinogenic properties. In modern times, it has been used to treat nicotine addiction but we strongly recommend not to ingest any part of the plant but rather enjoy its spectacular and long lasting summer flower spike. Plants are drought hardy, in fact they grow along the fringes of the Atacama Desert.
Flower stalks can be 1m tall and may need to be staked upright. Flowers during summer and autumn. Can be grown to flowering size in a 10L pot or similar.
Germination
Germinate any time of the year at about 16°. Seeds are tiny and we recommend you mix them with sand to make sowing easier. Pour the seed vial into a small bowl of slightly damp sand and stir the contents with the back of a teaspoon and then sow onto sand covered potting mix and gently water. Seedlings are tiny for some weeks and can be left in the seed pot until they are large enough to gently leaver our and transplant into small individual pots for planting out into the garden in Spring.
Approximate seed count
30 seeds/packet