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Incarvillea sinensis is a small shrubby plant endemic to Mongolia, occurring in dry steppe regions where the soil is mainly sandy loam. There, the plant likes total exposure and dry climate where it easily propagates by seed (of which there is no dormancy period). This species has a sensitive stigma, and its two open stigmatic lobes close soon after being touched by a pollinator, but always reopen if no or only little pollen was deposited. Some sources say flowers take some 1-2 years to come about but I've personally witnessed it happen within less than 5 months. It contains a potent analgesic monoterpene alkaloid, incarvillateine, many times more potent in its antinociceptive properties than morphine. I thought I'd have a crack at growing this plant because being in pain-free is pretty fun, right? There doesn't appear to be many people growing this plant and there is skant info in that regard. One good source is this SAB thread (thanks mindperformer!) where you'll find links to some papers, etc, and some good closeup shots of mindperformers home-grown plants. You can find some decent info here as well but no personal writeups of growing the plant. If you'd like to have a crack at growing them then you can definitely get seed here and here (in the UK). There are a few other species of Incarvillea growing in the bot gardens in Melbourne so they mustn't do too badly down here. I've heard that the seed responds well to the cold in order to wake it up, improving germination rates so I've put a few seeds in a take-away container in some moist (but not wet) standard potting mix and put them in the fridge. In two weeks I'll take them out of the fridge and into a shaded area where they won't dry out. You might not be able to tell from the photo but the seed is pretty tiny, about half the size of a chilli seed, and they look exactly alike. Fingers crossed I get some seedlings out of this!
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