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Turtlehead

Chelone

Also called Turtleheads

Turtlehead
Photo: User:SB_Johnny, CC BY-SA 3.0

Chelone is a genus of four perennial plants native to eastern North America, grown for their turtle-head shaped flowers in white, pink, red or purple. Commonly grown members include C. glabra and C. lyonii, which prefer consistently moist soil.

Family
Plantaginaceae (Plantain family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Part shade, Full sun
Water
Keep soil consistently moist, especially in summer.
Soil
Moist, humusy, fertile loam.
Temperature
Hardy in cold winters; suited to USDA zones about 3 to 8.
How easy
Easy

About

Chelone is a genus of four species of perennial herbaceous plants native to eastern North America. They all have similarly shaped flowers (which led to the name turtlehead due to their resemblance to the head of a turtle), which vary in color from white to red, purple or pink. Chelone cuthbertii, C. glabra, and C. lyonii are diploid and C. obliqua is either tetraploid or hexaploid, depending on their slight differences in morphology and localities.

Other Chelone plants

Pink turtlehead · Red turtlehead

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Chelone (plant) 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.

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