Thalictrum delavayi (Chinese meadow rue)

Native to western China, where it occurs from Yunnan to Xizang, Sichuan and western Guizhou Provinces.

A tufted perennial with flowering stems up to 2 m tall. The leaves are hairless and much divided. The leaflets are obovate or elliptic, lobed and toothed, and 1–3 cm long. The flowering stems are many branched at the apex. The flowers are pale lilac or pinkish-purple, with four ovate or acuminate sepals, 6–14 mm long. The flowers have numerous, prominent, cream stamens and 15–22 carpels.

Hand-coloured lithograph of Thalictrum delavayi by Matilda Smith (1890), taken from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Image: RBG Kew)

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Editor: Martyn Rix) provides an international forum of particular interest to botanists and horticulturists, plant ecologists and those with a special interest in botanical illustration.

Now well over two hundred years old, the Magazine is the longest running botanical periodical featuring colour illustrations of plants. Each four-part volume contains 24 plant portraits reproduced from watercolour originals by leading international botanical artists. Detailed but accessible articles combine horticultural and botanical information, history, conservation and economic uses of the plants described.

Published for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
See the Wiley-Blackwell Subscription Information page for rates (for both print and online).

Chinese meadow rue is cultivated as an ornamental.

The Millennium Seed Bank partnership aims to save plant life worldwide, focusing on plants under threat and those of most use in the future. Seeds are dried, packaged and stored at a sub-zero temperature in Kew's seed bank vault at Wakehurst.

Description of seeds: Average 1,000 seed weight = 1.38 g.
Collections stored in the Millennium Seed Bank: One.
Seed storage behaviour: Orthodox.
Germination testing: 95% germination was achieved on a 1% agar medium, on a cycle of 8 hours daylight (at 25°C)/16 hours darkness (at 10°C).

Chinese meadow rue can be seen growing in the Duke’s Garden, the Order Beds and the Rock Garden at Kew, where it flowers from July to September.

Pressed and dried specimens of Thalictrum delavayi are held in Kew’s Herbarium, where they are available to researchers, by appointment. The details, including images, of some of these can be seen on-line in the Herbarium Catalogue.

Search Kew’s science databases for more information on this species

Flora of China – Thalictrum delavayi

Royal Horticultural Society - Thalictrum delavayi

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Wiley-Blackwell)