Quillquiña days to harvest

Quillquiña (also spelled quilquiña, quillquina, quilquina, and probably a few other ways) is an ancient herb that is similar to papalo.  While papalo is virtually unheard of in Australia quillquiña is even less common and no one seems to know of it.  They smell and taste pretty similar to me.

I was told that they are classified as Porophyllum ruderale but there is some confusion over the binomial name, and there is some confusion regarding if this is a different variety of papalo, or a different subspecies, or a different yet highly similar species.


Much like papalo these seeds displayed a dreadfully low germination percentage this year, but this is meant to be representative of these herbs so I was expecting it.

Please note that the days to maturity listed were recorded in my garden in Australia, these numbers will be slightly different under different weather conditions and different years.  They are intended only to provide an indicative guide.

Days to maturity quillquiña (Porophyllum sp)

Seeds planted       17/08/2019       Day 0
Germinated           03/09/2019      Day18
Similar to my papalo, these seedlings all died when tiny so I planted another batch.  I gave the second set of seeds protection from the afternoon sun and they survived and went to to produce large plants.  In a less intense year they would do fine with full sun, but this year broke many heat records.

Days to maturity quillquiña (Porophyllum sp)

Seeds planted       01/11/2019      Day 0
Germinated          19/11/2019      Day 18
Harvest start         29/01/2020      Day 89
Flower start          01/04/2020

Quillquiña, they were larger than this when I started to harvest the leaves

For a full list of vegetable days to maturity when grown from seed, including herbs, berries, and carnivorous plants, please click here.