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Ephedra minima
Mormon Tea
Plant Type:
ARID LAND PLANTSEphedra minima – The new 4” to 6” gray-green segmented filaments which substitute for actual leaves rise vertically and gradually find decumbency by their second year creating a wonderful wild-haired grayish evergreen tousle. With two you get fantastic red chickpea-like pods that remain for months studded among the gray-green mass. This small Mormon Tea will settle happily in scree or scrabble in full sun. It would make a beautiful evergreen trough or pot plant as well. A xeric plant, it requires no extra water during the growing season. Ours are planted among boulders and stone in the scrabble of our cacti and succulent garden where they have gradually increased their girth like curious evergreen shag carpets. This is a very cool primitive plant providing an unusual texture especially when used as counterpoint to more architectonic plants. Pot grown division.
Characteristics and Attributes for Ephedra minima
Season of Interest (Foliage)
- Four Seasons
Autumn Interest
- Fruit / Berries / Seed Heads
Nature Attraction
- Deer Resistant
Light
- Mostly Sunny
- Full Sun
Attributes
- Drought Tolerant
- Edging
- Rock Garden
- Evergreen
- Natural Garden
- Salt Tolerant
- Medicinal / Herbal
Growth Rate in the Garden
- Slow
Soil
- Scrabbled
- Sandy
- Draining
- Calcareous
- Impoverished
Origins
- Tibet
Propagated By
- Division