Hosta vs Giboshi - Are They the Same?

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Hosta vs. Giboshi - Are They the Same?

"What is a Hosta?" If somebody asks you, your answer would be - a plant; a shade perennial; a shade tolerant perennial; a perennial grown mostly for the foliage...

Then, what is a Giboshi? The one-word answer is "Hosta." However, in this case, the word "Hosta" falls short of the meaning of Giboshi. Here I'd like to share with you some Giboshi Facts that I have been learning from my friends in Japan.

Giboshi is a weed

Well, "weed" is not exactly the word to describe giboshi, but close. They do grow outside the gardens - along the roadside, in the swampy area, in the mountains,...without being planted by the gardeners.

I have 2 pictures to share with you. They were taken by my friends in Japan.

Pic1
Photo by nature lover
Pic2
Photo by Kenya Haiku

Deep Down in the Glen
Growing Quietly Are Hosta
Blending with Boulders

You can see giboshi (probably Koba Giboshi or H. sieboldii) growing along the rice field (Pic1).

Pic2 is Oba Giboshi (H. montana) growing between the rocks in the valley. By the way, if you are curious about the writing in the picture, it is a poem called haiku. I am not a haiku person, but tried to translate it.

Because of this fact - Giboshi is almost a weed growing everywhere - the popularity of Giboshi in Japan is not quite high enough.

Pic3
Photo by nature lover

You Can Buy Giboshi at a Grocery Store

Japan is a country blessed with useful wild plants. Japanese people do not miss opportunities to taste edible wild plants - from bamboo shoots and fiddleheads in the spring to mushrooms in the fall,... and if you guess giboshi is one of them, you are right!

Giboshi is called "urui" and sold at grocery stores in the spring. I hear that it is prepared like asparagus when it comes out of the ground early in the spring, or like spinach when the leaves are just about to unfurl. Even buds can be cooked for tempura. Pic3 is a bundled giboshi (or "urui") purchased at a grocery store as a vegetable.

It is said that a resident of Sagae City in Japan found a variegated sport in his garden where he was growing giboshi for food. Since it was so pretty, he potted it up and kept it in front of the house. A plantsman happened to see it and that's how this giboshi debuted in the limelight. I am talking about, of course, 'Sagae' that is always ranked high in the popularity polls. Aren't we glad that they decided not to eat 'Sagae'!

Giboshi is a Wildflower

If you have seen photos of giboshi, especially wild ones, in Japanese articles, you may have noticed that many photos feature the flowers, not the foliage. Japanese people seem to consider giboshi as "wildflowers", instead of foliage plants as we do for hostas in the western countries. My mother in Japan used to use giboshi as cut-flowers, too.

I have a special treat for you. Unless you have Japanese language software in your computer, it is impossible to surf the Japanese web sites. Here are some search results of the Google Japanese sites that you can just click on. You will be able to see lots of giboshi photos from the Japanese web sites. These pictures do not always match the key words but they are linked to the sites where the key words are included.

Koba Giboshi (Hosta sieboldii)

Oba Giboshi (Hosta montana)

Tachi Giboshi (Hosta rectifolia)

Iwa Giboshi (Hosta longipes)

Giboshi, Where Are You?

Pic4: Photo by
Rojiura-no-Giboshi
You may say, "I have seen beautiful Japanese hostas in the Hosta Library. Where can I find them? Do they really grow wild in Japan?"

Yes, they do. Koba Giboshi (Hosta sieboldii) and Oba Giboshi (Hosta montana) grow almost throughout Japan, and many other different species grow regionally. Streaked, variegated or other unusual forms are found occasionally. Among them, sports of Iwa Giboshi (Hosta logipes), especially from Chichibu Region, are considered most valuable. Pic4 is one of them. Isn't it a beauty?

To fulfill our desire to have hostas we dream, we, in western countries, repeat hybridizing. In Japan, on the other hand, they rely greatly on Mother Nature to give them her special gifts, therefore, hybridizing is not yet as popular as here in the U.S.A. So finding an unusual giboshi is like winning a lottery! People, however, do manage to find "not-so-common" giboshi in the wild. Such giboshi is either immediately added to the personal collections never to be released, or become available only through specialized nurseries or dealers (for a high price, of course!).

I have a friend who collects such rare and beautiful giboshi. Fortunately he has a web site and I will invite you to his page: Rojiura-no-Giboshi Collection

No TC Lab Please!

A new variety may be very expensive at first. You may have seen some new hostas auctioned off for over $500, or even over $1,000. But in many cases, here in the U.S., these hostas are sent to TC (Tissue Culture) Labs and, in a few years, they start appearing in nurseries for a price we can afford. It's a good thing for us hosta lovers. If you don't want to spend $100 on a new variety, all you have to do is to wait for a few years.

However, Japanese collectors are not in favor of this idea.

Japanese giboshi collectors strive to keep the value of their collections. The name of the person who discovered the high-valued giboshi or the exact location is not usually disclosed. I've heard that even parentage of a high-valued seedling is not always disclosed.

Such a giboshi multiplies only by dividing and remains rare and pricy. It remains available only through limited sources. I don't know any nursery in Japan that ships giboshi overseas. I heard from multiple people about one well-known nursery that would not even deal with westerners. As you can guess, once a "rare and high-valued" giboshi leaves Japan, there is a great possibility that it will be sent to a TC lab, and, eventually it will lose its rarity or its value.

Western cultivars are also seen in Japan - but in the gardens, not in the mountains. They are sold at nurseries, and not at "grocery" stores.

Newer varieties are tissue-cultured in western countries, and they become available to general public in a short period. Newly "discovered" giboshi, however, is kept among limited collectors in Japan.

"Giboshi" and "Hosta"...they are biologically the same plants, but it seems they represent the two different cultures. Do you agree with me?

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