Great Indian Plantain (Cacalia muhlenbergii )

The silhouette of this plant attracted my attention from a moving car several weeks ago. The photos don't really capture the dramatic form that caught my eye speeding by at 50 mph. I stopped last Sunday to get a closer look.

Though I've never encountered Indian plantain before, I thought I'd seen similar plants in some of the nursery catalogues I use, so I went on a search, only to discover there are several different Indian plantains. This one has jagged, angular foliage held at a uniform angle (maybe 60 degrees) from the horizontal. Combined with the rigid stems of the plant, they make for a striking effect against a uniform background. I believe this is Cacalia mulengergii, Great Indian plantain, but correct me, please, if I'm wrong.

The umbelliferous flower heads are decorative, but the foliage and overall figure of the plant are what make this plant unique. Now I'm on a search to find it for my garden.


This close-up gives a better view of the foliage as well as the reddish stems.


This specimen is growing on private land, about 25 feet from the roadside, in the Rosemont Valley near our house in western New Jersey.

Rosemont Valley Winter

Our part of New Jersey has been called a piece of New England along the Delaware. Much of the farmland has been preserved and, up to now, the massive forces of suburban development have not penetrated to our rather remote part of the state.

I take great joy in driving out from the City each week, knowing about six miles from home I will cross the last remaining public covered bridge in the state, the Green Sergeant's Covered Bridge, as I enter the very small, very beautiful Rosemont Valley.

Is this what you envision when you think of New Jersey?

Rosemont Valley

These photos of the Rosemont Valley show an almost idyllic landscape rooted in two centuries of agricultural history. My Rosemont Garden was designed, not to duplicate the look of the valley, but to complement its aesthetic and emotional character - to suit the "genius of the place" in Alexander Pope's words.

The Garden at Federal Twist is only four miles away as the crow flies, but it's a world apart, a closed setting in the woods, with a tree-ringed circle of sky, protected by the surrounding forest, not open, windy and bright like the Valley. I'm slowly working out the nature of the new garden, but I'll remember it's still only four miles from Rosemont, and try to preserve something of that memory.


(Click on the photos to get a better sense of the scale of the landscape.)