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23 October 2016 | New Plants | Hemigraphis glaucescens | Perilla frutescens
While trying to verify the identity of the
Green Shrimp Plant (Blechum pyramidatum) last week, I had an
unexpected identification of another plant
(Hemigraphis glaucescens), that had been hibernating in my
unknown plant folders since 2009. The first time that I saw it was at the Singapore Zoo and managed to capture an image of
its flower then. Even with the flower, the search of its identity had been futile. I had short-life excitement when I saw
the picture of the flowers in a local pictorial plant guide
(Plants in Tropical Cities, page 456)
with the name Justicia gendarussa. The excited waned when I looked
up the pictures of Justicia gendarussa in the Internet. The leaves did look the same but the flower was totally
dissimilar.
Another herb that caught my attention was Perilla frutescens, commonly known as Perilla. It is a widely known plant and
goes by many common names depending on the countries. During my recent visit to a herb garden in the western part of
Singapore, I was told that a pot of herb with mixed purple and green leaves was Perilla. After examining the pictures back
home, I had doubt that the local herb was Perilla. In fact, it looked more like
Coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides) to me.
When I checked with plant nursery where I got the pot of Green Shrimp Plant two weeks back, they did not carry this herb.
The scale of this plant nursery was relatively large and they were selling all kind of traditional herbal plants. If they
did not carry this herb, it probably meant that the live herb was really uncommon or not easy to grow in Singapore. The
authentic Perilla leaves are available in some high-end supermarkets.
In the NPark Flora & Fauna website, it showed a cultivar from a cross between Coleus and Perilla with the end product known as Gage's Shadow that has purplish leaves. This well-documented cross took place in 2001 and this new and distinct cultivar was patented. In conclusion, I suspect there is no live Perilla frutescens plant in Singapore at this point.