Detailed Guide to Growing Pinellia ternata: Planting Methods and Difficulty Analysis

The tubers of Pinellia ternata are the source of the Chinese medicine "Banxia" (Pinellia ternata). Because it is toxic when used raw, it is mostly used only after processing. This image is taken from the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia and is not a specimen I grew myself.

The better-known relative of Pinellia ternata is generally the plant commonly known as "plowshare grass," Typhonium divaricatum (Typhonium blumei). Typhonium divaricatum usually grows in shady, damp places on flat ground and is considered a very common weed. But although Pinellia ternata itself is also distributed in Taiwan, China, as far as I know its distribution sites are all at mid-altitudes and above, and its populations are relatively small, not nearly as common as Typhonium divaricatum.

But the reason I bought Pinellia ternata was a completely different story.

At first, when the Pinellia ternata was sent to my home on the flatland of Taichung, it was right at the turn of winter into spring, so its growth was still decent. Although the old plants kept dying off, many new plants kept emerging one after another, and it also produced many bulbils, which made me feel that growing Pinellia ternata seemed promising.

Unexpectedly, after two or three weeks, after I repotted it, all the Pinellia ternata suddenly died. The planted bulbils and tubers also showed no movement at all, with no sign of wanting to sprout new shoots. At that time I looked up some information and found that when Pinellia ternata is poorly adapted, it can show this kind of "stem collapse" phenomenon. Relying on the idea that the bulbils and tubers were still there and that once it adapted it would naturally sprout new shoots, I just let it be and did not worry too much.

But that wait turned into one or two months passing, and a bunch of millipedes and white grubs that specifically feed on humus appeared in the pot. Seeing these insects, I already instinctively concluded that those bulbils and tubers had turned into spring mud, become humus, and were beyond saving.

But I am a lazy person, too lazy to dump out this pot of an insect breeding colony, so I just piled it in the farthest corner of the balcony and used it as a water tray for other potted plants. And so it quietly and inconspicuously passed through the three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn.

Only at the turn between autumn and winter did I surprisingly discover that Pinellia ternata had actually quietly emerged in other pots. Then, two weeks later, that pot of Pinellia ternata that I had pressed at the very bottom suddenly sent up a bunch of Pinellia ternata shoots, quietly declaring that it was still alive.

As cold fronts arrived one after another, the weather got colder and colder, and the Pinellia ternata grew more and more luxuriant. The number of shoots that emerged was almost exactly the number of bulbils plus tubers I had buried when repotting. Only then did I understand that Pinellia ternata is so tough that it can survive for so long in an environment that is both wet and rotting and full of insects. The only problem it faced was simply that the weather on the flatland of Taichung was too hot, so it had a bit of heatstroke.

Then the spring south wind came in gusts from the sea, the temperature rose higher and higher, and the Pinellia ternata, which was somewhat petite and whose leaves still felt not fully unfurled, also collapsed one by one. This also confirmed my thinking: it really is unsuited to the flatland temperatures and cannot survive through the three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn. So unless it is in an air-conditioned greenhouse, or in mountains above 1,000 m in elevation, otherwise, following this trend, the Pinellia ternata grown each winter will only get smaller and smaller, and weaker and weaker. Getting Pinellia ternata to grow normally year-round, or even to be grown and produced on a large scale, is unlikely to be possible.