Several years ago I was sent a photo to identify that had me stumped for a while. Of course, as is the way with these things, the photo was not very good, small and out of focus. It puzzles me how, when most phones have cameras that exceed the wildest expectations of anything we could dream of 20 years ago, people still manage to take such bad (and tiny) photos.* Anyway, the flowers looked familiar and, digging deep into my memory, they looked like Patrinia trifolia (P. triloba, P. trifoliata), that I met on the rock garden at Kew several decades ago. But this was not a small plant but seemed to be a robust perennial and I worked out that it was Patrinia scabiosifolia. It was a plant I don’t remember ever seeing in real life and that was that, till last month.

At Garden Show Antrim, a lovely local nursery (I regret I can’t remember the name, though the Head Gardener at Hillsborough Castle was involved – my apologies) had some cottage garden plants and among them was a slender (or scrawny) plant that I immediately recognised. Here was Patrinia scabiosifolia in the flesh. We had a good chat about its merits and I bought one, along with alchemilla which, for reasons too complex to even try to work out, is absent in the garden.

Patrinia is now in the yellow and white border and has started to bloom. It is the sort of plant that suits me perfectly; the flowers are so small they almost need a microscope to see and it is unusual. But there is more to this plant than that.

When you consider how popular Verbena bonariensis has become – it is almost a cliche – with its thin, upright habit and profusion of small flowers, then this patrinia ought to find favour too.

It is a hardy perennial, that should self-seed, has see-through stems and flattish heads of minute flowers, in bright yellow. It is useful for late summer and is supposed to bloom for ages.

Hardiness should not be an issue because it was introduced from Eastern Siberia at the start of the 19th century. It is supposed to be a good cut flower and is used as such in Japan though there are reports that the flowers have an unpleasant smell, not something I have noticed yet. It is one of the ‘seven flowers of autumn’ in Japan where it is called omina-eshi, which means ‘lady flower’. It doesn’t really have a common name though ‘gold lace’ seems to be getting some traction.

The leaves are slightly strange, and might cause confusion when seedlings pop up. The basal leaves are lance-shaped and grow in clumps from the soil but the leaves on the stems are divided into a feather-like shape, much like scabious, would you believe. I suspect that the plants would have a taproot and need transplanting when small, but that is just a feeling with no facts to back it up.

So here is a tall (1.5m) hardy plant to use to fill in around other plants, to provide a veil of yellow, a cut flower and a plant that pollinators will appreciate. There has to be a fly in the ointment, of course, and it appears that this plant is the alternate host of hemerocallis rust. This has led to worry in the USA about its use as a garden plant but the disease is not present in Europe and rusts, with their complex life cycles, can reproduce without alternate hosts anyway. So although I love my daylilies and am upset about the gall midge, I am not worried about the patrinia. It does not spontaeously produce the rust.

It is a plant I need to experiment with. It may benefit from the Chelsea Chop or may flower longer if deadheaded – though I will leave my one plant to self seed, or even collect some seeds.

My plant has not stood up well to the gales this week and now has a decided lean but that is my fault for not staking what was a gangly plant in a small pot. I will report back later on how it does but I think it is a plant who’s time has arrived.

*yes I know these photos are not great either!

patrinia scabiosifolia