Common Name: giant rhubarb

Zone: 7 to 10

Height: 6.00 to 10.00 feet

Spread: 8.00 to 14.00 feet

Bloom Time: June to July

Bloom Description: Reddish-green

Sun: Part shade

Water: Medium to wet

Gunnera manicata, commonly called giant rhubarb, is one of the largest herbaceous perennials on earth, typically growing in a rounded clump to as much as 10' tall and to 14' wide. It is native to southern Brazil and Columbia. Huge, puckered, toothed, palmately-lobed, prominently-veined leaves (to 6-8' across) with rounded to reniform (kidney-shaped) blades are borne on stiff, prickly, reddish-hairy stalks to 8' long. Leaves are peltate, tilting to the horizontal. These dinosaur-sized leaves give rise to the additional common name of dinosaur food for this plant. Tiny, reddish-green flowers in thick, club-like spikes (3-6' conical panicles) rise up from the crown in early summer. Flower spikes are often somewhat hidden by the foliage. Flowers give way to reddish-green fruits (tiny berry-like drupes). Although botanically unrelated to rhubarb, the coarsely-textured leaves of this gunnera are considered by some to be reminiscent of the leaves of rhubarb.