Bupleurum

Mainly annuals, perennials and shrubs. With small yellow to green flowers, often in airy umbels. Flowers can be enhanced by enlarged bracts. Those that we grow tend to enjoy a sunny, warm spot on free draining soil. The only shrub, in common cultivation, B. fruticosum is a super shrub, tolerant of coastal sites.

Our two hare's-ears both produce attractive umbels of small yellow flowers. Those of the shrubby hare's-ear are long-lived and quite large, supporting huge numbers of visiting insects, especially hoverflies and ladybirds. In contrast sickle-leaved hare's-ear (B. falcatum) has smaller umbels, although still attractive, especially to hoverflies. This species has an unproven claim to be a very rare British native plant, known in the wild only from a road verge in mid-Essex. Some decades ago this population was threatened by road-widening; plants were rescued by Essex Wildlife Trust and safeguarded in one of their nature reserves. This could well be a source of our plants, which now form a wonderful lacy river of yellow running through the Gravel Garden beds.