Douglas Justice's November in the Garden 2023 - UBC Botanical Garden blog features the garden's evergreen viburnums that are grown "primarily for their beautiful foliage and berries". If you're really into viburnums, I recommend his previous blogs on this genus: December in the Garden 2021 - UBC Botanical Garden December 2018 in the Garden - UBC Botanical Garden It's a good thing Douglas keeps writing about these, because I have hardly learned to recognize any of them, though I was starting to get the hang of it just about when I'd given up. My first big find was Viburnum parvifolium, which is the only one I found that is covered with berries. Ah, but what I saw when I was looking for the viburnums. I knew to look for Decaisnea insignis, dead man's fingers, and it was Halloween day. But I was not expecting to see so many flowers on the Rhododendron cinnabarinum subsp. xanthocodon Concatenans Group. Since we're supposed to be doing leaves, near the dead man's fingers is the Cathaya argyrophylla, which I first posted in 2012 (first photo). I'm still trying to learn the name. And here is Elaeagnus macrophylla. I don't know if the leaves are supposed to be fragrant. I didn't see any flowers, but something was very fragrant around here, and I didn't see a katsura nearby. I'll get back with the program in the next posting.
Here is Viburnum cylindricum. Next to it is Viburnum foetidum, which I would not have recognized as this genus. Actually, I passed both of these shrubs several times before it clicked that they were what I was trying to find. I was too busy being excited about the rhododendron flowers on the same trail. Also nearby are two Viburnum henryi. This one is on the Henry Trail. And this is on Upper Asian Way, at the top of Kingdon Ward. I even found a few fruits.
Here is a little colour and some favourites from the garden this week. I was in the north garden looking for Sassafras albidum, which I didn't find (maybe the leaves are gone now, and I wasn't sure what size it would be). But I did catch some colour. Here is Crataegus viridis 'Winter King'. Nyssa sylvatica Grey is a colour too - Salvia officinalis 'Purpurascens' Hesperantha coccinea are still doing it on the entrance plaza, as is this planting of Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow'. Nearby, the Cotinus 'Grace' steals the show. I hadn't remembered the name of one of my favourite tree leaves when I did the previous postings, so here are more green leaves, on Tetracentron sinense, next to a Viburnum cinnamomifolium that I was supposed to be looking at. And a whole bunch of photos of either Tricyrtis formosana 'Dark Beauty' or Tricyrtis sp. - both are listed in the same location next to the reception centre.
