The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Cantua buxifolia
Also called Magic Flower, Magic Flower Of The Incas, Magictree, Qantuta
Cantua buxifolia is an evergreen shrub from the high Andean valleys of Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile, prized for clusters of pink tubular flowers in spring. It needs a sunny, free-draining spot and protection from hard frost.
Cantua buxifolia, (, Hispanicized spellings cantuta, cantu), known as qantu, qantus or qantuta (Quechua) is a flowering plant found in the high valleys of the Yungas of the Andes mountains in western South America. Also known as the Peruvian magic tree, it is an evergreen shrub growing to 4 m (13 ft) tall by 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide with small leaves and clusters of brilliant pink, narrow tubular flowers in early spring.
It is the national flower of Peru and one of two national flowers of Bolivia, the other being the patujú (Heliconia rostrata).The Bolivian national flower is in fact a particular variety of qantuta, the qantuta tricolor, which has red petals, a yellow floral tube and a green calyx, reflecting the colors of the national flag.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cantua buxifolia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
