🌿 Culantro / Recao
Eryngium foetidum
herbs biennial/perennial herbaceous
🗺️ Zones
4-9
🧪 Soil pH
6.0-7.0
📏 Spacing
6-12 in. apart, 12-18 in. between rows
📅 Days to Maturity
55-70 days (from seed); 45-60 days from transplant
🍴 Edible Parts
🍽️ ["Sofrito🍽️ recaito🍽️ Puerto Rican and Caribbean cuisine🍽️ Vietnamese pho🍽️ Thai soups"]
🤝 Companions (5)
🤝 shade-tolerant crops
NOT cilantro/coriander—a different plant with stronger flavor that thrives in heat and shade where cilantro bolts. Excellent understory herb in tropical food forests. Long harvest period.
Ginger's upright foliage provides the partial shade culantro prefers; both thrive in warm, humid conditions with consistently moist soil.
Turmeric provides light shade that prevents culantro from bolting in heat; both need similar moisture and thrive together in tropical herb gardens.
🤝 bananas
Culantro grows excellently in the moist, shaded understory beneath banana plants, which maintain the humid microclimate culantro needs.
🤝 tree understory
NOT cilantro/coriander—a different plant with stronger flavor that thrives in heat and shade where cilantro bolts. Excellent understory herb in tropical food forests. Long harvest period.
⚠️ Keep Apart (1)
⚠️ plants requiring full sun in same bed
Growth inhibition or competition
💊 Medicinal Uses
Contains eryngial (E-2-dodecenal) with antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory effects. Rich in calcium, iron, carotenes, and riboflavin. Traditional remedy for fevers, chills, hypertension, and digestive issues. Leaf decoction used for pneumonia, flu, diabetes, and constipation in Caribbean and Latin American folk medicine.