Common name: Chinese artichoke

Originating in China, this relative of the mint family is a perennial herb cultivated for its tubers, which are cooked and eaten as a vegetable.

Growing to only 50 cm (1.6 ft) tall, it shares common features with other plants in the mint family, producing square stems and softly-haired or pubescent foliage made up of small, deep green and prominently veined leaves.

The flowers come in showy purple, pink and white varieties and are borne on erect flower stems above the foliage, usually from spring to summer. It rarely produces seed, which is not uncommon for plants in the mint family.

The tubers are white-skinned, small thin and elongated with a curious segmented or jointed appearance.

Use

The tubers are cooked and eaten mainly as a starchy vegetable, though they are also pickled whole in its native range. They have a short shelf-life of about one week and only if kept moist and refrigerated, so are best consumed or preserved within a few days of harvest, when they are still firm.

Roasted, sautéed or fried they have a soft, yet crunchy texture and a slightly nutty flavour. Their unusual shape and small size lend to them being prepared as a snack food, or a fancy vegetable in high-end restaurants. They are usually left whole and unpeeled in preparing them for cooking. The starch in the tubers is highly digestible and is reported to have good nutritional value, including carbohydrates and protein.

The flowers attract butterflies to the garden and the tall, showy flowering stems can be cut for use in floral arrangements.

Climate

Thrives in cool subtropical and tropical high-elevation climates, generally areas with annual lows of 8 to 15°C, annual highs of 20 to 27°C, annual rainfall of 800 to 2300 mm and a dry season of 5 months or less.

Growing

New plants are usually grown from tubers leftover from the previous harvest, which will re-sprout if left in the ground. 

Grows best in full to partial sun and has similar soil requirements to other plants in the mint family, performing best on free-draining, moisture-holding loam and sand soils that have been enriched with organic matter and adjusted to a slightly acid to slightly alkaline nature, generally with a pH of 6.6 to 7.5.

The tubers need five to seven months to fully develop and become ready for harvest. They are difficult to clean and like potatoes are best pre-soaked in water before the dirt is brushed or washed off.

Problem features

It is listed as a weed in at least one reference publication, but there does not appear to be any record of it as a serious weed. This may be due, in part, to its shy seeding habit, which minimises the risk of it escaping cultivation. Any of the tubers missed being harvested will re-sprout the next growing season to form new clumps of plants.

Books

• Hanson, B. 2007, Buried treasures : tasty tubers of the world : how to grown and enjoy root vegetables, tubers, rhizomes, and corms, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, New York

• Macmillan, H. F. 1943, Tropical planting and gardening : with special reference to Ceylon, 5th ed, Macmillan Publishing, London

• Morgan, D. & Achilleos, A. 2012, Roots : the definitive compendium with more than 225 recipes, Chronicle Books, San Francisco

• Randall, R. P. 2002, A global compendium of weeds, R.G. and F.J. Richardson Press, Melbourne

• Randall, R. P. 2007, The introduced flora of Australia and its weed status, Cooperative Research Centre for Australian Weed Management, Glen Osmond, South Australia

• Roecklein, J. C & Leung, P.S. 1987, A Profile of economic plants, Transaction Books, New Brunswick, New Jersey

• Rubatzky, V. E. & Yamaguchi, M. 1997, World vegetables : principles, production, and nutritive values, 2nd ed., Chapman & Hall, New York