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After I had shown slides of this selection at a talk in the state of Washington in 2017, Dr. Aaron Floden, a world authority on the lily family, commented, "That is awesome! And yes, that is the weird Polygonatum zhejiangensis. It is such a puzzling species with morphology from both of the main groups and molecular data that is just weird, but places it near P. sibiricum (which is sister to the alternate leaved species) or at the base of the verticillate species. Would you mind if I posted these to the Polygonatum FB page?" And this of course is "pH.d. speach." Just realize that this is by far the tallest Polygonatum that I have ever seen, getting to the 6-7 ft. range here in pots, maybe taller in the ground. The tip of each leaf curls around any close object, be it stem or leaf, from a nearby plant. The white flowers hang in small panicles from its nodes in the summer when the new shoots are generated. There are a couple of unusual aspects to this species. The first being that smaller stems emerge with alternate leaves, but as more mature stems emerge, they will have a verticillate (whorled) arrangement of its leaves. The other unusual aspect of this species is that the new shoots don't emerge until early summer, very much later than any other related species that I have observed. Grow it in a part to full shade environment with uniform moisture. Here in zone 8 it is completely evergreen. In colder areas it may die back. It does need some support either by staking or planted amoungst plants upon which it can depend for support. I noticed a few pots of this in a small nursery in Nagoya, Japan, and the owner allowed me to purchase a 4 in. pot of it. As far as I know, this may be a first offering of this species in America. The first photo is of my nephew Nathanael who is over 6 ft. The last picture is the size that we are offering.
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