Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

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.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Rhaponticum carthamoides

Rhaponticum carthamoides
Photo: Doronenko 08:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC), CC BY 2.5

Maral root is a perennial herb in the daisy family, native to sub-alpine and alpine meadows of Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and widely cultivated in Russia and Eastern Europe. It is grown mainly for its roots, which are used in herbal preparations.

Family
Asteraceae (Daisy family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water regularly during dry spells in the growing season and let the top of the soil dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile loam with good organic content.
Temperature
Hardy to well below freezing, suited to cold winters; protect young plants from late frosts.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
C. Asia to Siberia and Xinjiang
Climate
temperate

About

Rhaponticum carthamoides, synonym Leuzea carthamoides, is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the family Asteraceae. It is known as maral root or rhaponticum. It inhabits the sub-alpine zone (4,500–6,000 ft (1,400–1,800 m) above sea level) as well as alpine meadows. It can be found growing wild in Southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, the Altay region, and Western Sayan Mountains. Maral root is widely cultivated throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. This plant derives its traditional name maral root (maralu) from the maral deer that fed on it.

R. carthamoides is high in 20-hydroxyecdysone, a steroidal substance that can disrupt the molting and reproduction of arthropods.

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhaponticum carthamoides 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…