Hostas, the Friendship Plant

In putting together this blog, it ocurred to me that I did not know the origin of or the rationale for why hostas are called "the Friendship Plant." So today's post treats that subject, and it will no doubt be revised as I come across additional information about this topic.

Here's what hosta authority Bob Solberg has to say about it in his web article "Why Hostas?" at http://www.hostahosta.com/whyhostas.html :

... "There is one other thing about hostas; they bring out the humanity in us. I call them a 'social' plant. They are designed to chop up and pass over the fence. The most fun about hostas is giving them away. We give them to our neighbors who become our hosta friends. That is why the AHS has named the hosta the 'Friendship Plant', and rightly so. This is the real reason why hostas are the most popular perennial in the county, they are a people plant."

The American Hosta Society's Hosta Adventure: A Grower's Guide (2008) contains the following statement at page 32:

... "In 1998, AHS designated Hosta as the 'Friendship Plant.' Alex J. Summers, a founder of the society and its first president, declared that ['t]he American Hosta Society is a society of people, not plants.['] Though hostas have brought gardeners together, friendship among these members is what has sustained AHS for four decades."

So the "Friendship Plant" is in reality a nickname or sobriquet or honorific for the genus Hosta; its common name is simply hosta or the plantain lily (perhaps the subject of another post?).

There is, however, a plant whose accepted common name is the friendship plant. That plant is Pilea involucrata.