Dorstenia bahiensis (Mattress Button Plant)

Dorstenia bahiensis

Botanical name: Dorstenia bahiensis

Common name: Mattress Button Plant

Origin: Brazil

Dorstenia bahiensis is an interesting plant with strange looking receptacles. At maturity, seeds shoot ballistically from the mature flower/fruit heads, and they germinate readily whenever the land on soil or other moist substrate.

Mattress Button Plant is a shade-loving oddball. Its glossy green leaves are topped with flat, wavy discs that really do look like old-fashioned upholstery buttons scattered across the garden floor. But these button heads aren't just for show - on their surface are tiny clusters of male and female blooms, all crammed together like a mini city of flowers.

The real fun begins when those button heads ripen. Instead of quietly dropping seeds like most plants, Dorstenia goes full popcorn mode. With a little "pop!" the seeds are catapulted yards away, just like squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers. One moment it's calm, the next it's launching its offspring across the yard.

At only 6-12 inches tall, this little understory dweller doesn't take up much space, but it makes up for it with personality. Think of it as a ground-hugging trickster, content in the shade, thriving in moist tropical soil, and ready to surprise you with its seed-shooting antics. Grow it in a pot, use it as quirky groundcover, or just keep it around as the botanical equivalent of a party trick.

The plant can be propagated from cutting the rhyzomes.

It covers well exposed soil in greenhouses, dark corners, and shaded beds.