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Products > Tanacetum haradjanii
 
Tanacetum haradjanii - Partridge Feather
   
Image of Tanacetum haradjanii
 
Habit and Cultural Information
Category: Perennial
Family: Asteraceae (Sunflowers)
Origin: Syria (Asia)
Evergreen: Yes
Flower Color: Yellow
Bloomtime: Summer
Synonyms: [T. haradjanii, Hort.]
Height: <1 foot
Width: 1-2 feet
Exposure: Full Sun
Irrigation (H2O Info): Medium Water Needs
Winter Hardiness: <15° F
Tanacetum densum ssp. amani (Partridge Feather) - A low growing shrublet that forms a dense mat 4 to 8 inches tall to 2 feet wide or more with soft finely divided silvery gray-white leaves and produces yellow button-like rayless daisy flowers in loose heads that rise up on short stems in summer.

Plant in full sun or light shade in a well-drained soil where it requires very little irrigation - some report it can tolerate clay with careful irrigation scheduling. It has proven perfectly hardy for us and others note it is hardy to below 10° F and useful in gardens down to USDA Zone 6. The flowers are short lived and while somewhat charming, can also be sheared off to retain just the silver foliage look if so desired and a good haircut of the foliage in early spring keeps the plant neater looking. This is a wonderful little plant for dry gardens and stunning when used to contrast with green or reddish foliage or just growing over low rocks or gravel.

Tanacetum haradjanii is native to the mountains of southern Turkey that was reportedly introduced from a collection made by the British botanist Peter Hadland Davis (1918–1992) from Anatolia in Southeastern Turkey in late August 1949 and from this collection it has been grown as an ornamental plant worldwide. The name or the genus is an altered form of the Greek word 'athanatos' which means "long-lasting" or "immortal" and refers to the long-lasting dried flowers of Tanacetum vulgare, whose flowers were placed on the dead at funerals, the specific epithet means "dense growing" with the subspecific epithet given to it by a Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh botanist Vernon Heywood is a reference to the Amanus mountain range in Bahçe District, of Adana Province, Anatolia where the plant was first collected by Peter Davis.

We have grown this attractive and interesting plant since 1989. We first grew it using the correct name Tanacetum densum ssp. amani but in 1993 we were told this plant was Tanacetum haradjanii and listed it as such in our 1994 catalog and all subsequent later catalogs. It appears however that this was the wrong decision as it has become clear that the plant we grow and sell is correctly named Tanacetum densum subsp. amani as we had originally listed it and these two names, both valid for different plants, have been confused in horticulture since the 1950s. The true Tanacetum haradjanii was first described as Chrysanthemum haradjanii in 1950 by the Austrian botanist Karl Heinz Rechinger (1906-1998) to honor Manoog Haradjan, who first collected the plant in 1911 in the Amanus Mountains in Syria near the Turkish border between 5,000 and 6,600 feet in elevation and in 1975 it was reclassified as Tanacetum haradjanii by the Scottish botanist Andrew John Charles Grierson (1929-1990). It is a finer textured but taller plant that is rarely cultivated and most if not all plants listed under this name are actually Tanacetum densum subsp. amani. There is a good article written by Fritz Kummert from Austria about this naming confusion in the August 2019 issue of the International Rock Gardener. This plant has also been called it Tanacetum 'Beth Chatto' after the British plants woman and landscape designer who popularized this plant and is commonly called Partridge Feather. 

The information about Tanacetum haradjanii displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.