Seen in the bog garden at Howick Hall, Northumberland UK. July 2010. Lord Howick is an avid planthunter, especially trees. This may be something from his foreign travels. Your help as always much appreciated.
Thanks Ron. Tried that! Sent e mail with pics . Didn't even get a reply. The bog garden, as seen in the link you posted was not enormous, but it was just full of so many unusual and wonderful plants. Spent a couple of hours looking at it. No time for the Arboretum. Will just have to go back!
And pester them. Maybe you can manage to be there when staff is present in the part of the collection housing the mysteries.
When we were there, there was a delightful young friendly gardener working on the weeding. The bog garden was his responsibility. However, he hardly knew any of the plants in his care. He had started a small notebook with diagrams and descriptions with the names of some plants, in an effort to learn the names. We ended up telling him the names of several plants that we knew. It would really worry me to have a novice, weeding in such an amazing collection. How did he know what were weeds and what were treasures? Seed heads were just put in the compost. I will have to try snail mail to Howick Hall to see if that brings more luck.
I see their policy on labels in the bog garden: Certainly difficult to find an image of a species with a leaf that tapers like that at the base.
Think I may have found it. Persicaria milletii. Pics on www not too clear but the description here sounds close. It does have prominent midribs. http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/plant/persicaria-milletii http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgu...t35CA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0
Yep, interesting how few photographs there are of it (even when one searches for Bistorta milletii, Persicaria milletii or Polygonum millettii) I think you have it right, though.
