This month we put the spotlight on two lovely little plants in the Violaceae botanical family. Pigea enneasperma (photo above) was spotted on our April outing to Bluewater Range, and we found Pigea stellaroides (photo below) a few days later on the rocky slopes near Cape Cleveland.
At a glance the flower shape provides a handy reminder of the common name, Spade Flower. But over recent years, these pretty plants have undergone a pretty confusing series of name changes. Lilac Spade Flower was formally known as Hybanthus enneaspermus and Orange Spade Flower was Hybanthus stellaroides. Then their genus was changed to Afrohybanthus. Now they are Pigea, reverting to the genus that was applied back the 1800s (Forster 2021).
Both of these Spade Flowers are small upright plants with narrow leaves (photo above). Growing as single plants, they are often widely scattered among long grass and other low-growing species so they can be difficult to spot in the wild.
In a garden setting, Spade Flowers provide an attractive display if you establish several plants in a dense cluster (photo above). Tubestock plants are only occasionally available from some native plant nurseries, and nursery-grown Pigea seem to suffer from the inevitable disturbance of being re-planted. Sowing Pigea seed directly in the garden might be the best strategy.
Pigea enneasperma has a wide distribution across eastern and northern Australia (map above left) and also occurs in parts of Asia and Africa. Pigea stellaroides (map above right) occurs in coastal Queensland, New South Wales and PNG.
Spadeflowers have long been used for traditional medical treatments and advanced modern research methods are now being used to study their rare chemical components – read more here.