Does anyone have any ideas about this one? I feel like I know it but can't quite place it. Maybe a euonymus of some sort. Anyhow, it's a shrub, probably going to grow to over 3m high and wide. It appears to be evergreen and the leaves, which are heavy and glossy, are around 10cm long and have a bronze tint when young. Size and substance-wise it's on par with a big Aucuba. I took these photos today - midsummer here - and there was no sign of flowers or fruit. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
May have answered my own question. It looks like it may be a very glossy-leafed cultivar of Viburnum odoratissimum. Does that seem right?
I agree, probably Viburnum odoratissimum. Here in Australia, garden centres have been selling plants in recent years that look rather different from the ones that have been around for 100 years or more and can grow very large (I know of one almost 10 m tall in Sydney beside an old block of flats, and there was one in the Botanic gardens with a bole about 50 cm diameter close to the ground). Note that it's a subtropical species, from south China, SE Asia and northern Philippines. 6 vars have been distinguished, mostly for wild plants. I wonder if yours may be var. awabuki, from Taiwan.
Plants grown as a cultivar of the last here are a more open and erect, narrower leaved version. http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=2173&highlight=awabuki
Thanks, Tony and Ron. I had noticed that awabuki was used as a variety name and a cultivar name and appeared to refer to the form with very glossy leaves like the one I saw but I wasn't been able to establish if the natural variety and the cultivar names referred to similar plants. From what Ron has written, they may be quite different from each other. Awabuki also appears to be the Japanese common name for Viburnum odoratissimum in general. A little confusing.
