Desfontainia spinosa

In the Valdivian temperate rainforest of Chile and Argentina D. spinosa is typically found growing in the understorey of forests dominated by Nothofagus (southern beech) species - particularly lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) and coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi).

Desfontainia spinosa, like many red-flowered plants, is pollinated by birds, the species involved being the green-backed firecrown - Sephanoides sephaniodes - the most southerly species of hummingbird. A bumblebee species - Bombus dahlbomii is also involved. Bee species are barely receptive to red wavelengths of light i.e. greater than 600 nm, but have been found still to be able to perceive red flowers, particularly blue-ish red ones, thanks to their l-receptors. Desfontainia flowers are mostly of a true red (scarlet as opposed to deep pink) but, seen with the green-sensitive component of a bee's vision, still present enough of a contrast with green foliage to be noticeable and thus pollinatable. Furthermore, the yellow flower mouths of certain varieties of Desfontainia would be visible by bees at 590 nm. (See Bee learning and communication section 1.6 Neurobiology of colour vision). Bombus dahlbomii, a large, golden-furred species and the only one native to the South American temperate forest of southern Chile and Argentina, is now, sadly, endangered, thanks to the introduction of European Bombus terrestris.

Desfontainia spinosa has twice been reported with voucher specimens as a hallucinogen from Andean southern Colombia by Richard Evans Schultes : the first time in 1942 from the Páramo de Tambillo and the second from the Páramo de San Antonio in 1953. Shamans in Colombia's Sibundoy Valley make a tea of the leaves 'when they want to dream' or 'to see visions and diagnose disease'. It is not used frequently, partly because of its potency, partly because the plant itself is not cultivated and must be gathered in the wild in remote páramos. The Colombian name of the shrub is Borrachero de Paramo (=intoxicating plant of the mountain bog/bleak upland moor). The Camsá shamans of the Sibundoy Valley are also expert in the use of the dangerously toxic solanaceous hallucinogens Brugmansia and Iochroma and their occasional employment of Desfontainia for similar divinatory purposes (and reticence to speak of this practice) may well indicate a plant similarly toxic and difficult to use and causing a comparably unpleasant experience and after-effects. Desfontainia spinosa var. hookeri has been reported as a narcotic utilized by the Mapuche people of Chile by Carlos Mariani Ramirez, who also likened the bitterness of the plant to that of Gentian and mentioned its use as a yellow dye. The greenish-yellow, baccate fruit of D. …

Desfontainia spinosa was introduced into cultivation in Europe by William Lobb in 1843. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. It requires a sheltered, partially shaded position in acid pH soil.