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Gum Flower. Darmera peltata, Umbrella Plant, Beatrixpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

It's a rather boring name, is Umbrella Plant. But 'Indian Rhubarb' might cause confusion, conflating it with Rheum webbianum, which indeed hails from the Indian subcontinent. The 'Indian' in the common name of our plant refers to Native Americans. As far as I can trace it, that name goes back to at least 1697 when a description of its gum was given by one Martin Lister (see OED). The plant was first described in 1849 under the scientific name 'Saxifraga peltata'. In 1899 it was given the current moniker 'Darmera peltata'. It hails from western North America where it was first collected by Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812-1871) near Sacramento in 1839. 'Darmera' is for Karl Darmer (1843-1918), indefatigable horticulturalst of Berlin, Germany.

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Uploaded on April 13, 2025