Discover the history of Chinese Money Plant (Pilea peperomioides). Find out how the plant got the name the Friendship Plant. The Chinese Money Plant’s history is complicated and circuitous–but a really fun story!
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Today, we have another installment of Plant Stories, focusing on the history of the Chinese Money Plant, Pilea peperomioides. This plant is also known as the Friendship Plant, and its history explains why. I also have a care video on the Chinese Money Plant; however, today, we will delve into its intriguing history.
The Chinese Money Plant belongs to the nettle family and is used in traditional Chinese medicine. It has small white flowers and large, saucer-like leaves that many people love for their unique round shape.
Pilea peperomioides was first collected by George Forrest in 1906 and 1910 in the Cang Mountain Range and the Yunnan Province of southern China. Forrest, a Scottish botanist, was one of the first western explorers of China’s then-remote southwestern province of Yunnan, known for being the most biodiverse province in the country.
In 1945, the Chinese Money Plant was rediscovered by Norwegian missionary Agnar Espegren, who was living with his family in the Hunan Province at the time. He obtained a live sample of the plant, likely from a local market, and brought it to Calcutta, where his family stayed for about a year. Remarkably, the plant survived the journey back to Norway in March 1946.
Espegren traveled around Norway, giving sprouts of the plant to friends, which is why it is called the Friendship Plant. Through this sharing, the plant spread across Norway, Sweden, England, and beyond. Botanists didn’t fully understand its origins until recently.
The Pilea became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, especially around London, where it was available at Kew Gardens and in Edinburgh, where Forrest’s collections were conserved. Amateur gardeners propagated the plant via cuttings, but its origins remained unclear to scientists.
Progress in identifying the Chinese Money Plant was made in 1978 when Mrs. D. Walport of Northolt sent some leaves and a male flower to Kew Gardens for identification. The leaves resembled certain species of Peperomia, and further research by botanist Wessel Morris revealed that the plant was a Chinese species of Pilea, named in 1912 by German botanist Friedrich Diels as Pilea peperomioides.
Over the following years, new samples from different parts of the UK were sent to Edinburgh for identification, revealing that many people were growing this curious species as a houseplant and sharing it with friends. To clarify its journey from Yunnan to Europe, Robert Pearson published an article in the Sunday Telegraph in January 1983, asking readers to inform Kew Gardens if they had any information on the plant’s introduction to Britain.
Among the replies, one from a family in Cornwall led to the answer. They had received the plant 20 years earlier from their Norwegian au pair, who brought it back from a holiday in Norway. Several Scandinavian botanists then visited Kew to examine specimens of Pilea peperomioides, confirming it as the plant they had seen before.
Dr. Lars Curth of the Botanic Garden in Stockholm recognized the plant he had been growing since 1976 as Pilea peperomioides and presented it on a popular Swedish TV show. This led to more than ten thousand letters, proving the plant’s popularity in Sweden. Eventually, the link to Agnar Espegren’s story was established, and Pilea’s true identity was confirmed in 1984, when Kew Magazine published the first known image of the plant.
Officially named Pilea peperomioides, this plant is affectionately known as the Chinese Money Plant, UFO Plant, or Saucer Plant, named for the shape of its leaves. As mentioned, I have a care video to help you keep this beauty healthy and happy in your indoor garden.
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