Rare & Unique Exotic Seeds

Strawberry Spinach is one of the best-kept secrets of the herb world. A native American plant, this self seeding annual sets tiny, deliciously tender leaves that can be cooked like spinach or used fresh in salads. It also sets small red fruits in late summer and autumn that taste a bit like mulberries and are lovely fresh or cooked. You can use almost the entire plant instead of just one part, and Strawberry Spinach draws out this pleasure by setting new leaves all season long. Snip off just what you need at the moment, and harvest more later! The foliage is slender, deeply lobed, and appears in rosettes along long, slender stems. The berries are edible as well. Quite small, they resemble raspberries more than strawberries. The berries arise at the base of each stem, and a plant in full fruit is a glorious sight. Grow Strawberry Spinach in full sun (direct-sowing the seeds works best) and rich, fertile soil. It reaches about 45cm high and 30cm wide, and needs no staking or supports. Easy and trouble-free, it's an exciting new addition to the herb garden, vegetable patch, or even the flowering annual flower bed.

Capparis spinosa, the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial winter-deciduous plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The plant is best known for the edible flower buds (capers), often used as a seasoning, and the fruit (caper berry), both of which are usually consumed pickled. the salted and pickled caper bud (also called simply capers) is often used as a seasoning or garnish. Capers are a common ingredient in Mediterranean cuisine, especially Cypriot, Italian and Maltese. The mature fruit of the caper shrub are also prepared similarly, and marketed as caper berries. The buds, when ready to pick, are a dark olive green and about the size of a fresh kernel of corn. They are picked, then pickled in salt, or a salt and vinegar solution, and drained. Intense flavour is developed as mustard oil (glucocapparin) is released from each caper bud. This enzymatic reaction also leads to the formation of rutin often seen as crystallized white spots on the surfaces of individual caper buds.

The white batflower (Tacca integrifolia) looks like a normal plant, right up until it starts to flower. When it does, the plant unfurls some of the strangest and most amazing flowers in the plant kingdom. Beneath the clusters of purplish flowers hang long bracts that can reach a foot in length, like whiskers. Above the flowers flare two light coloured bract like bat wings.

Opuntia, also known as nopales or paddle cactus, is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae. Currently, only prickly pears are included in this genus of about 200 species distributed throughout most of the Americas. The fruit of prickly pears, commonly called cactus fruit, cactus fig, Indian fig or tuna in Spanish, is edible, although it has to be peeled carefully to remove the small spines on the outer skin before consumption. If the outer layer is not properly removed, glochids can be ingested, causing discomfort of the throat, lips, and tongue, as the small spines are easily lodged in the skin. Native Americans, like the Tequesta, would roll the fruit around in a suitable medium (e.g. grit) to "sand" off the glochids. Alternatively, rotating the fruit in the flame of a campfire or torch has been used to remove the glochids.

The Peruvian Torch is a favourite amongst Cacti collectors. Tolerant of a wide variety of conditions it can handle more water than most cacti making it a rather easy to grow specimen than most cacti. It can be grown either outdoors ot potted. It produces large white flowers.

Enormous cactus, silhouetted by the setting sun, for most of us the Giant Saguaro is the universal symbol of the American West. And yet, these majestic plants are only found in a small portion of the United States, It is native to the Sonoran Desert in the U.S. state of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, a small part of Baja California in the San Felipe Desert and an extremely small area of California, U.S. The saguaro blossom is the State Wildflower of Arizona. In habitat adult plants grow out in full sun with plenty of high temperature days over 100 F, but as juveniles they are able to live as house plants with less sun and much cooler summer temperatures. The method of reproduction for saguaro cacti is by seed production and is able to maintain its population by producing extremely large quantities of seeds within the fruits. Each fruit can produce up to 2,000 seeds and it is not uncommon to have over 30 fruits per stem on an individual saguaro. If favourable conditions occur, growth can begin within 48 hours they grow best in coarse, well-drained soils and seeds require high temperatures to germinate.

F1 hybrid A very deep red with dark green fringed outer leaves with finely ruffled edges, around 30cm wide. Plants are dependably uniform. An outstanding ornamental.

F1 hybrid A white center with dark green fringed outer leaves with finely ruffled edges, around 30cm wide. Plants are dependably uniform. An outstanding ornamental.