If you're complaining about the heat, you'll find it very comfortable in the Asian Garden at UBCBG. It was lovely yesterday. And enjoying plants in the shade is is the theme of Douglas Justice's upcoming August in the Garden blog. There are some nifty dry fruits to amuse you. The blog starts out with the very showy and easy-to-notice Carpinus fangiana. I am so surprised that I haven't posted dozens of photos of this smashing tree already, and I can't even find more than three photos of it on my computer. I can only conclude that I never get it in focus, and yesterday's photos pretty much supported that. Here's what I got. I knew nothing of its less showy relative Carpinus rankanensis. It's right there on the corner where Douglas says it is, just off Lower Asian Way on Farrer Trail (walking from the entrance, it's ON the far side of Farrer, on the right side of Lower Asian Way), right out there in the open at the intersection, looking totally invisible. I had to stand there and will those seed-catkins to come into view. Maybe it will be easier when they turn yellow.
Douglas Justice's August blog is published now at August 2018 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden. I had already noticed the Rehderodendron macrocarpum fruits two weeks ago, now had an excuse to take more photos of them. They've shown up in previous postings, sometimes as Rehderodendron gongshanense. Douglas says all of those are R. macrocarpum. I'm not sure if he meant the names have been merged or if the ones with the gongshanense name were re-identified. There are at least three of them up on Hemsley hill, but these were all taken of a nice one I think on Lower Asian Way and Ludlow. I'm not sure why they're such a favourite - are they really more exciting than a tree full of apples? Fruits are a similar size and colour. But these are in the Styracaceae family, with flowers very similar to the Styrax japonicus we see so often around town, with pea-size or only slightly larger pale blue-green fruits. So seeing those flowers turn into these colourful fruits that seem like huge tough nuts is sort of amazing. Or maybe I like them because I can remember the name. Douglas gives a common name of Rehder's sausage tree - that seems a little hyperbolic, though that's likely because the sausage tree I know is Kigelia africana, but I have a display to demonstrate what I mean for the next posting.
As promised in the previous posting, here are flowers of Styrax japonicus (taken in May 2016) and the fruits. Compare those with the Rehderodendron macrocarpum, flowers from May 2013, and fruits on a Hemsley hill tree. I have an excuse to include one of my favourite trees in the same family, also with rather remarkable fruits - Melliodendron xylocarpum. Flowers from May 2013. Some of these trees have flowers that are more white, but this is my favourite.
The Rehderodendron fruit are a favourite of mine, because when they are mature they are like wood and very pretty. I have engraved a few and they turn into nice little Garden gifts. But alas, the past two years I cannot get a hold of any mature fruit. The squirrels take them all.
@Eric La Fountaine, do you have any photos of ones you've engraved? Maybe with this year's bumper crop, you would be allowed to pick a few?
I can pick them for engraving, it's just that the squirrels take them as they ripen. I need ripe fruit for the engraving. I don't have any left to show.
It was still cool and beautiful in the Asian Garden on Thursday, and pretty nice in the Carolinian Garden too. I'll stay with the program for a bit, mentioning the maples from the blog. They have not coloured up yet. I didn't know either of these maples and I didn't get close enough to the Acer erianthum trunk to even look for a label, but it's supposed to be the only maple in the bed on the east side of Rock above Forrest, and the leaves and samaras look right. There are a LOT of samaras. If these do go red this year, it should be fun to see. I had got distracted in the Carolinian Garden and forgot I was supposed to be looking for Acer spicatum. Finally as I was leaving I found a maple, wondered if it would do, and luckily, it was just what I was looking for. I wasn't at all certain, after reading about the "upright candle-like stalks", but those are the feather-weight flowers, not the samaras. All the photos I see of the fruits are drooping.
Back to strange fruits. I hadn't got over to the Carolinian Garden when I posted the three Styracaceae in posting #3. If I had, I'd have included this Halesia tetaptera in the same family. Pretty cool fruits. I don't have a flower photo from the same tree. They are white, and the tree I always photograph is a pink variation. But this one has the largest fruits. There is a different Halesia species near the beginning of the Carolinian Garden, near the Lobelia cardinalis. I named my photos, but I'm not certain I have it right, so I will leave it unnamed for now. It looks like it's suffering from the hot dry weather. If it's the one I originally thought, it would prefer to be in a floodplain. Interesting that it has some lingering flowers, though it likely flowered in May with the other Styracaceae I photographed here. Here is Ptelea trifoliata, with samara fruits, though single, not double samaras like the maples. I don't remember rose hips being this creepy. This is Rosa roxburghii f. normalis, not one that we've posted here. I'm not even sure what the flowers look like - photos that come up on a query look not quite believably varied, but it seems they're pink.
Here are two trees with fruits that are bladder-like pods, but the trees are not related. The Koelreuteria paniculata, in the Sapindaceae family (the maple family!) is such a show-off on the entrance plaza, first when it has its yellow flowers, and then when the almost golden pods appear. The pods are looking very showy now. Oh dear, I knew this was Staphylea pinnata, in the Staphyleaceae family, didn't even have to look it up or look for a label, but now when I check my list, that species name isn't there. I don't know what to say about that. These leaves have five or seven leaflets, so that should rule out the other names on my list in the north garden.
A few more fruits that will never go in a fruit basket. The first is from Magnolia macrophylla; it will eventually turn red. Aesculus pavia fruits will not turn anything. Is this even a colour? Trochodendron araliodes with green fruits that stay green, if I remember that correctly. Some Philadelphus fruits turn purple. This species isn't identified; I'm not sure what it will do. I haven't noticed this one before - it has huge (for Philadelphus) leaves. Carpinus caroliniana, in the Carolinian Garden, has leafy-looking bracts hiding tiny green fruits. And here is one with no fruits, but I'd really like to see the fruits, and they would go in a fruit basket. It's Asimina triloba, paw paw. I haven't photographed it before, have not seen the flowers (which from photos are pretty interesting in themselves). There are a few of these trees; I don't know if they are different enough varieties to allow cross-pollination (or if they have even flowered). Asimina triloba - Wikipedia has an extensive write-up on this. Forum member Durgan has posted some photos of paw paws from his garden in Ontario at 24 October 2017 Pawpaw Asimina triloba.
This will also be easier to find when the Farrer trail sign returns from its visit down to the other end of the Wharton Glade, as the tree is on Farrer just below Lower Asian Way. Well, the Carpinus rankanensis fruits are a little more visible now. They are still less than half the size of the fruits of C. fangiana. Is that a wasp nest in it, in the second photo? Here is a little segue to the Acer photos related to the blog - this Acer carpinifolium, which name means leaves like Carpinus. I've met this species before, but I still did a double-take, as these are very unusual leaves for a maple. It has maple samaras, though. It's the tree in the middle background in the first photo. I wonder if the Acer erianthum samaras are going to colour up this year - they appear to be going straight to brown instead. The Acer palmatum 'Osakazuki' samaras are looking great, much better than what I was able to capture in a photo. This tree is set way back, viewable from the Henry Trail, to the left as you turn north off Upper Asian Way. It's a good time to see them, before the leaves turn the same colour. The dark area at the right front and the lighted area to the left of that belong to this tree.
I had another look at Acer spicatum. I would guess that they are as red as they will get this year, but I could be wrong. They have an awesome translucence.
This is Halesia diptera Magniflora Group. I wish I had named it at the time, because I was trying to figure out if I had posted it, and it was hard to find without the name. I commented above that it looked like it was suffering from the dry weather, but it looks just like that now, like it has watercress growing through it. I can't find any description that says the new leaves should look like this.
I happened upon the Halesia diptera again today, was so surprised to find more flowers than ever (that I've seen on it). I wish someone would comment on the watercress leaves. It has plenty of large leaves; but the flowers all seem to hang from bits with the watercress-looking ones. Last year on August 9, I photographed fruits; this year, which seems to be an early year, there are still all these flowers, and I found no fruits. The Acer spicatum samaras are a bit deeper pink than what I saw last year.
I'm trying to keep Halesia diptera Magniflora Group photos together, so here it is four years later, still doing what I've been calling watercress leaves on flowering branchlets. Previous photos are in posting #9 and the two postings before this one. It doesn't seem as floriferous as in other internet photos, but it seemed like there were lots of flowers.
