Rare & Unique Exotic Seeds

The Black bat flower, Tacca chantrieri, is a species of flowering plant in the yam family Dioscoreaceae. Tacca chantrieri is an unusual species in that it has black flowers. These flowers are somewhat bat-shaped, are up to 12 inches across, and have long 'whiskers' that can grow up to 28 inches. There are different colour types, including white and brown, both retaining the whiskers of the black variety. Tacca chantrierei grow wild in the tropical forest in Yunnan Province, China, where they can get as tall as 36 inches (~0.91 meters). They grow best in well-drained soil and high humidity but are hardy down to -3C.

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.

Common hop is a dioecious, perennial, herbaceous, climbing plant which sends up new shoots in early spring and dies back to a cold-hardy rhizome in autumn. It is native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The flower cones of the plant, known as hops, are used in the production of beer to impart bitterness and flavour, and for their preservative qualities. The extract is antimicrobial, which makes it useful for making natural deodorant. Hops also contain the potent phytoestrogen, 8-prenylnaringenin, that may have a relative binding affinity to estrogen receptors. Hop also contains myrcene, humulene, xanthohumol, myrcenol, linalool, tannins, and resin.

The variety we offer is common hops. We regrettably are not able to supply any of the other specialised hops varieties.

USDA Zone - N/A

Season to Sow - N/A

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.

Mimosa pudica also called sensitive plant and the touch-me-not, is a creeping annual or perennial herb often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, re-opening minutes later. The species is native to South America and Central America. The stem is erect in young plants, but becomes creeping or trailing with age. The stem is slender, branching, and sparsely to densely prickly, growing to a length of 1.5 m. The leaves of the mimosa pudica are compound leaves.

To see how the sensitive leaves react when touched, please take a look at this YouTube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc

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.

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.