Rheum x hybridum
Rhubarb – unknown cultivar
Gloria Newlan
Watercolour
Artwork size in cm, 46 x 36
£550.00
Polygonaceae Family ( Knotweed )
Ancient Crop of Scotland
The culinary rhubarb is a hybrid with unknown origin, although many named cultivars exist.
I think of edible Rhubarb as a community plant.
In the village where I live, I see it being dug up and given in a neighbourly way, hand to hand , which was how I came to grow Rhubarb in my own back yard. Someone living nearby brought me a root of her plant and dug it in for me. A vigorous hardy perennial , dying back in the autumn and growing and producing new stems from the crown the next spring.As the plant developed, I became interested in the colour and how to use it for dye as well as food and medicine.
The stalks, rich in antioxidants , are a vegetable but used as a fruit, cooked with a sweetener.
The root has mild laxative properties and in Edinburgh, Gregory’s Mixture was developed by James Gregory.
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