How to grow the Maryam’s flower at home
How to grow the Maryam’s flower at home
The Maryam’s flower (Anastatica hierochuntica L.) is a plant of the Brassicaceae.
It is an annual herbaceous plant widespread in North Africa, western Asia, and eastwards to Pakistan, where it grows in desert or pre-desert areas.
This plant is characteristic in that, at first glance, it looks like a dried up bulb; however, it will be enough to wet it to make it regain life and color.
It is a difficult plant to find on the market (the false Maryam’s flower (Selaginella lepidophylla (Hook. & Grev.) Spring is often found) which, however, is a perennial fern which, although it lasts for years, will never produce flowers.
The Maryam’s flower, however, dries up and dies at the end of its life cycle, while it is the aforementioned Selaginella that takes, more properly, the name of “resurrection plant” given that in fact, even if very dehydrated and apparently dead, it can return to life, being perennial.
In any case, both species will appear as dried up bulbs.
Tradition –
The Rose of Jericho, since ancient times, was used as an element to divine the climate, since being a vegetable hygrometer, the sage or shaman successfully predicted it. In dry weather the plant remains completely closed; in case of rain it opens slowly; if rain threatens it opens very visibly and more or less quickly depending on the proximity of the clouds to the discharge.
Cultivation –
To care for the Maryam’s flower you need to start by wetting the roots; shortly after, the plant begins to open and its twigs acquire a green color, with a different shade depending on the temperature of the water.
The plant should then be placed, without a real substrate, in a dish or saucer with half a centimeter of warm water in a bright and ventilated environment. It only takes a few minutes and the plant will open.
After that, you should not leave the plant in the saucer with water for more than 2 or 3 days; once this period has passed it will be removed from the water and, slowly, the plant will dry out completely again.
Once dried you can decide to keep the Maryam’s flower dehydrated or put it back in water after 15-20 days to see it open again. At the end of its life cycle, however, this plant will produce small white flowers, dried which will die definitively, closing the dry branches to protect the seeds which, in this way, will be able to remain dormant until the water stimulates the branches to open up a little. last time freeing them.