October 17, 2013 - some questions, and some colours: yellow and beyond

First the questions.

One of my flickr buddies recently replied to a posting I did last year of this tree marked Abies koreana, saying it looked more like a cultivar, not a seedling. Any comments?


And this Sorbus alnifolia has leaves that look a lot different to me from the first ones I posted in this Sorbus alnifolia? Simple leaves, fruits in loose corymbs thread. Are they both Sorbus alnifolia, or if not which is the one that isn't and what is it? In that other thread, I see that I found another whose leaves are more like these, and asked if it was the same. No-one replied, so I get to wonder all over again.


I was getting a little miffed at these Malus with lobed leaves and supposedly short spurs that really look like thorns, looking ever so much like Crataegus (Hawthorn). Here's Malus rockii. Nadia made me eat a fruit from this (or maybe another - I'm not seeing any fruits in my photos, or maybe I ate the only one!) and from a hawthorn. OK, got it. Hawthorns have pits.


Now some colours, mostly ones we posted last year, but it's hard not to get excited by these.
Cercidiphyllum japonicum - Katsura


Lindera obtusifolium


Juglans nigra - black walnut, attempt at an artsy fog photo


Nyssa sylvatica


Disanthus cercidifolius


Euonymous europaeus, another foggy photo


A flower and a fruit:
Rhododendron cinnabarinum subsp. xanthocodon. This is stranger looking than the photo would indicate - the leaves are more blue, maybe a little less harmonious with brash yellow of the flowers.


Halesia macgregorii. I'd previously only seen the Halesia in the Carolinian Garden. This one is in the Asian Garden.

 

Many think that if a plant appears more or less aberrant to them that it must then be a cultivar. But the one does not automatically follow from the other - plants produce variations that become cultivars only if a party selects, names and propagates them. Many cultivars are based on growth habits or other physical attributes that a given seedling can be exhibiting without that particular individual having been made into a cultivar. Some cultivars are named for having features which numerous different seedlings display over and over; when a particular species has given rise to a substantial array of cultivars exhibiting diverse characteristics this can indicate that abnormal seedlings of it are frequent in cultivation.

The Sorbus is positioned as though dropped there by a bird; the shape and orientation of the leaves is not like that of other S. alnifolia.

When you got near the Halesia, did you hear pipes?

 

No, just foghorns. I was looking to see if it's deciduous and whether the leaves would colour up in plaids (I didn't find the answer), but of course it's from China - I don't know who MacGregor is. It seems, according to Wikipedia, that there's a movement afoot to move it from Halesia to Rehderodendron. That will certainly confuse me - the fruit looks just like Halesia and nothing like Rehderodendron.

Thanks for the other comments.

 

I saw this today, don't use my camera with the zoom any more, so no photo, but I see in Garden Explorer - Perkinsiodendron macgregorii - Chinese silverbell | UBC Botanical Garden - that it's now called Perkinsiodendron macgregorii. The link to Flora of China goes to the Halesia name. Perkinsiodendron macgregorii - Trees and Shrubs Online says "Perkinsiodendron macgregorii is more closely related to Rehderodendron than to the American Halesia species, with which it used to be included." They didn't consult me on that.