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Don’t you love it when you solve a mystery. I have an intriguing pretty plant in my garden that I

flowers and the plant

couldn’t identify.  Finally a person with the App ‘Picture This’ revealed it as‘Jewels-of-Opar or Talinum paniculatum. I was totally delighted to learn this. It is also known as Fame Flower or Pink Babies Breath.

If you are a Tarzan fan you’ll probably have heard this name as Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1916 wrote ‘Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar’.It was also

The novel cover

mentioned in his second book ‘The Return of Tarzan’ written in 1913. Who or where is Opar? It may be based on an ancient African place called Ophir which held rich treasures of frankinsence and gold. Burroughs’ Opar is a fictional place holding a huge cache of gold and gems gleaned from doomed Atlantis. Tarzan ventures to Opar in order to claim some of the wealth. Some event, which seems as logical as a few of the plot twists of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, linked this Central American plant to a fictional African city. In any case, this charming plant was given the  nickname ‘Jewels of Opar’.

I think this exotic name fits the succulent leaved

Flower buds and seed pods

plant perfectly. It is adorned with tiny pink flowers spaced on an airy branched stem that last a long time opening and closing up each day, being loved by bees

Jewels of Opar flowers

and pollinating insects. Then the flowers are followed by small round red and earthy toned seed pods that look a bit like little beads or jewels spaced on the branches. These sprays of autumn colour can be dried and used in autumn bouquets or wreaths.

Jewels of Opar is a low growing plant of up to 20cm high by 30-40cm wide with succulent oval shaped leaves that are edible (always a bonus in my garden) with a pleasant fresh taste and not at all bitter. The main stem is also succulent and fleshy and my plant has bites taken out of it, no doubt

Leaves

by snails. The flower stem grows up to 45cm tall.

It is native to Southern United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Mine grows in a bed that gets shade in the afternoon. It is drought tolerant and is happiest and most productive in bright full sunshine. It love plants that self-sow readily and this ones pop up in different places in the same flower bed. You can easily pull out the plants if you don’t want them or move them to another location.  It is said to be an annual but I find that it behaves more like a perennial.  Our winters being pretty mild mean that the fleshy roots send up new leaves in spring.  I had a Chinese horticultural student say she remembers eating the fleshy roots back in China and they call it false ginseng. I have not ventured to try eating the roots yet!
I’d be intrigued to hear if anyone else has or knows this plant. julia@juliasedibleweeds.com