Scientific: Aspidistra elatior
Common: bar room plant, cast iron plant
Family: Liliaceae
Origin: Japan
Pronounciation: As-pi-DIS-tra e-LA-ti-or
Hardiness zones
Sunset 12 and 13 with protection, 16-24
USDA 7 (some reports indicate this, but I have my doubts) -11
Landscape Use: Small-scale ground cover for dense shade plantings, indoor building atriums including shopping malls, inner court yards, stairwells, and shaded entryways, atrium rock gardens, indoor container gardens, shade container plant, container house plant.
Form & Character: Leafy and clumping, upright, stiff, yet delicate.
Growth Habit: Evergreen, herbaceous, acaulescent perennial that clumps and spreads slowly by rhizomes. Foliage might extend to 2 feet above the ground surface.
Foliage/texture: Large somewhat succulent green entire simple leaves, dark green, ovate to lanceolate in shape to 12- to 30-inches long that appear on elongated thick petioles that emerge from rhizomes below ground; coarse texture.
Flowers & fruits: Tiny purple flowers appear at the base of plants in the spring, not showy and seldom seen; fruits are inconspicuous.
Seasonal color: None
Temperature: Intolerant of freezing temperatures.
Light: In Phoenix, bar room plant requires full shade. Even planting bar room plant on the north side of buildings will cause sunscald injury because of late afternoon early summer sun.
Soil: Performs best with organic amendments heavily added to soil because bar room plant is HIGHLY salt and alkaline soil sensitive.
Watering: Frequent regular irrigations are required to keep normall desert dry soils evenly
moist.
Water quality warning: In Phoenix, normal "tap water" used for irrigation purposes has a total dissolved salt (TDS) concentration that ranges between 600 and 1000 ppm (about 1 dS/m) depending on time of year. If bar room plant is grown in a "hard shade" setting where desert rainfall cannot periodically leach the soil, then the accumulation of salts from "tap water" used as irrigation will lead to salt buildup in soil and bar room plant salt injury (foliar necrosis) and eventual plant death. How to remedy this problem in a sustainable manner you ask? Easy....irrigate with captured rain water, aka rain water harvesting.
Pruning: Remove salt damaged or dead foliage; otherwise, divide clumps after several years to re-invigorate growth.
Propagation: Division of clumps.
Disease and pests: None
Additional comments: Bar room plant is a specialty plant for Arizona landscapes because of its sensitivities to direct sunlight, temperature extremes, and soil salts. In contrast, few plants can tolerate extreme low light conditions below 30 footcandles like bar room plant.
Some cultivars include:
