Home / Education and Outreach / Interpretative Signs / Platycodon grandiflorus

Platycodon grandiflorus

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The common balloon flower, Platycodon grandiflorus (Campanulaceae), is a valued plant in Oriental herbal medicine and a first rate herbaceous perennial.

Platycodon is well-known for its beautiful, purple-blue, bell-shaped flowers, but any child will tell you that its large, balloon-like, valvate flower buds - the five petals are initially joined along their margins - are its most memorable feature. Native to Japan, China, Korea and Siberia, Robert Fortune (1812-1880) collected plants along the coast of China in 1843 for the RHS garden in Chiswick (near London), where they were an immediate sensation. The root of balloon flower (radix platycodi) is used extensively in Asia as an anti-inflammatory in the treatment of coughs and colds.

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