The Chinese Green Dragon Plant – A Guide to Care
If you’re looking to have your socks knocked off by your plant collection, the Chinese Green Dragon ticks all the boxes. Not unlike a lovely cymbidium orchid, it’s definitely a plant worth getting to know. Is it stunning? Definitely. The earliest records of Pinellia ternata, the species’ scientific name, date back to the 18th century. It’s known by a handful of different common names: Chinese Green Dragon, sacred babirusa, umbrella plant and zhang lu, and its umbrella-shaped stems fuel fascinating renshen (「人脞」in Chinese) stories passed down through the ages. Pinellia ternata acts as sacred medicine and a symbol of male fertility in Chinese folk remedies. Pictured here is a Chinese Green Dragon in my garden. It likes shade, does best planted in moist soil conditions and is prone to frost damage. Because this underground stem can be very challenging for growers to decipher and looks a little alien-like, it serves as a storytelling medium. It’s reasonable to be curious about the people who cultivate plants like this and those who care for them. Through my plant teaching workshops, I’m doing my best to pass on the blend of care and personal narrative that I infuse into the act of plant growing. And as an advocate for non-violence, there’s no better way to spread my concern for cats and wildlife than to include it when teaching people how to interact with a faithful feline companion.
What is the Chinese Green Dragon Plant?
Pinellia ternata, also known as the Chinese Green Dragon plant, is a herbaceous plant belonging to the Araceae family, which also includes common houseplants such as the peace lily and philodendron. Native to the East Asian region of China, Japan and Korea, Pinellia is an obscure perennial herb, named for its alluring foliage and rare spadix growing from a rhizome, which oddly resembles the appearance of a dragon’s tongue – which explains its English moniker.
The plant grows from a tuber-like corm, about 2.5 cm long at its base and 1.25 cm in diameter, and typically grows to heights of between 30-60 cm. The leaves are three-lobed (trifoliate) and are often quite dark and shiny green. The group of leaves that triangulates around the spadix is called the spathe – a leaf-like bract of the spadix that encloses the spadix’s reproductive zone and contributes to the plant’s exotic air. This ‘leaf’ is green on the outside and purple, or occasionally brown, inside; the spadix (the plant’s reproductive structure), is a thin, serpentine structure that tapers to a forked end, giving it an air of mystery.
Symbolism and Cultural Significance
It has a strong mystical cultural background with many cultures naming it the Chinese Green Dragon Plant. In Chinese culture, the name often has to with good energy, strength, power and protection. There is also a powerful symbol in Chinese mythologies that includes one-horned dragons represented by power, strength, authority and good fortune, where the one-horned dragon is a symbol of good fortune. This powerful Chinese cultural meaning of the Green Dragon aligned with the idea that they were a symbol of power and strength and drove their popularity into Feng Shui culture for dreading the bad energy of evil spirits.
It was for this reason that the Green Dragon plant had its needles laid out in the garden’s strategic planning and distributed among the plants, to take advantage of the Green Dragon’s protective qualities, and its association in Chinese philosophy with the element of wood, associated with growth, vitality and renewal. As such, the Green Dragon was seen as symbolic of resilience in the face of adverse circumstances.
Care and Maintenance of the Chinese Green Dragon Plant
The Chinese plant season belongs to Green Dragon plant, which is renowned as a plant with low maintenance requirements because it grows well under various conditions. Gardeners from all over the world admire it both for its affordable price and its beauty. However, if people want the Green Dragon plant grow healthy, they should carefully read and adhere to the following instructions of its care.
Light Requirements
The plant is very partial to partial shade, so it will do well indoors or in the shadier part of your garden. The plant might withstand a bit of sun, but the lush, green leaves will scorch in too much direct sunlight. If you’re growing your plant indoors, place it somewhere where it will receive light for a few hours of the day.
Soil and Watering
In terms of soil, the Green Dragon does best in moist but well-drained loam enriched with organic matter, in slightly acid a pH of 5.5 to 7.0. Water is essential for dahlias, and the plant will benefit from being kept consistently moist but never waterlogged. (This is a frequent problem with many tuberous plants.) Overwatering is a one-way street to root rot! The soil can be watered deeply and left to dry out a bit in between waterings.
Temperature and Humidity
Temperature
1. Although the Chinese Green Dragon is quite resistant to temperature, it prefers cool to moderate temperature (15ºC to 25ºC, 59ºF to 77ºF).
2. It can tolerate temperature higher than that, but it is not recommended to put the plant under direct sunlight or under higher temperature, as this might affect or get rid of the plant.
Secondly, humidity: again, the Green Dragon is accustomed to moderate to high levels, like what it would experience in its natural habitat. Hoecakes can be captured in a vaporiser, or leave bowls of stones doused in water nearby for evaporation.
Fertilization and Pruning
Feed the Chinese Green Dragon plant with a balanced, water-soluble fertiliser in the growing season (spring and summer) only. A monthly schedule should suffice, but this can easily be forgotten. There is little risk of the plant failing to thrive. On the other hand, fertiliser burn can be fatal, so always err on the side of caution.
This type of plant doesn’t typically need pruning, although, if you like, you can take out any dead or yellowing leaves to maintain the appearance. If the plant gets too large or leggy, you can prune it back to help it grow more compactly.
Propagation
The Chinese Green Dragon can be propagated pretty easily, through its tubers. To divide them, wait until the plant begins to die back in fall, and dig up the corms. Separate the smaller offsets from the main tuber, replant those offsets in fresh soil, and they will flower into new plants the following spring.
Medicinal Uses and Benefits
The Green Dragon from China is not just a garden plant but also a medicinal specimen. It has been used for hundreds of years in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The plant’s tuber has been known to cure a variety of diseases.
Traditional Chinese Medicine
In TCM, its tuber (called Ban Xia) is used to treat conditions of the respiratory, digestive and some neurological systems. It is considered a warm substance and is prescribed today to activate the Spleen (and thereby dry up mucus), to dispel or resolve phlegm (a classic TCM category for discharges of mucus), to stop coughs, and to dispel or stop nausea and vomiting.
The tuber from this plant is a source of bioactive chemical compounds, including alkaloids, flavonoids and saponins, underlying its medicinal effects. Nonetheless, because raw tubers of this plant are toxic, herbal remedies containing Ban Xia must be prepared by qualified traditional-medicine practitioners.
Modern Research
The plant’s purely therapeutic properties against a number of conditions and infections might offer an additional rationale to continue studying it. Recent studies, in fact, document the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of Chinese Green Dragon plant extracts. These findings do not mean that the plant is ready to hit the market as an anti-inflammatory or painkiller. However, they might warrant human trials for other indications beyond the traditional uses of the Chinese Green Dragon plant.
Feng Shui and the Chinese Green Dragon Plant
The Chinese Green Dragon indoor plant is another feng shui favourite. Feng shui, an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics, is based on arranging living spaces to create balance and harmony. It customarily includes plants with strong, impressive stems to enhance the flow of Qi – the energetic life force of the universe – around various parts of a space. The Green Dragon plant with its symbolism of the dragon is reputed to attract potent protective energy into the home.
Placement in the Home
Carefully consider where to place the Chinese Green Dragon in your home because this plant functions best in its auspicious sector. Feng Shui practitioners like to see the Green Dragon planted in the eastern or southeastern sector of the home, which corresponds to the wood element and the energy of the wood element, here growing and thriving. The protective quality of the Chinese Green Dragon renders it useful in entryways or near windows, keeping negative energy from entering the home.
Balancing Energy
The Chinese Green Dragon plant is also used in Feng Shui to balance the energy of a space by yielding the upward force of its growth and pointing the room back upward to counteract stagnant energies. Its bright green colour is also associated with upward growth, similar to jade, and considered to be uplifting and energising in a space. Using the plant in an area of a space that would benefit from some additional energy and vibrance is a good way to balance out a stagnant feeling in the space. Good pairings for Green Dragon in a space are with water features or with wooden furniture, the opposite element.