How nice to read Douglas Justice's October 2020 in the Garden - UBC Botanical Garden blog, and then do the Greenheart TreeWalk with his descriptions in mind. My aim for today was to see the Bretschneidera sinensis. From the photo in the blog, I was expecting to see a bare pole with a few branches at the very top, but there are lots of branches now and it looks like a normal tree. The first photo was taken from the first platform past the tower, and the second one from the ground. Ohana, who was working the entrance to the tree walk, told me that in the winter this tree loses not only leaves but also the branches - she said last year there were three branches remaining. Douglas says in the blog that flowers are due in a decade or so. I will have to content myself with looking at his excellent photos of ones he saw in Vietnam- see the Botany Photo of the Day at Bretschneidera sinensis, which is a very good read, and I definitely recommend following the link there to his 2017 trip blog.
In case it's any help, here is the Cercidiphyllum japonicum that's across the path from the bretschneidera, easier to locate. It hasn't started colouring up yet at all. I can't say I'm one of the people who can get "very comfortable" moving around on those walkways, certainly not enough to take photos while holding on to ropes with two hands, so you will have to go see the radial phyllotaxy (see the blog) for yourself. Here are a couple of plants mentioned. Polystichum munitum (western sword fern). Abies grandis. I found branch in the second photo on the ground - Ohana told me that they are the grand fir pollen cones. The most noticeable plant seen when exiting the walkway is what I think is a big-leafed Cotoneaster, the one listed in that area without a species name. I had my doubts because of the hairless leaf backs, so corrections are welcome. The fruit I opened had a single seed. Here is a nice Acer davidii, somewhere near the bretschneidera. The leaves are very large, like 3/4 the size of my hand, and on the first branch I saw, were unlobed. The next branch was more reassuring. And there was a label.
I enjoyed looking at leaves last week, not even ones with fall colour. Here is one of my favourites, Tetracentron sinense, which I first learned about seven years ago on a tour Douglas Justice led to Ireland, at Lord Rosse's estate, Birr Castle. There are a few of these around the Asian garden. I like the distichous (in one plane) leaf arrangement, and the fancy leaf margins. Here is Alangium platanifolium, which was cut back to the base after it collapsed during a storm some time around 2016. It's done very well in four years. The graceful tree award this month goes to Idesia polycarpa. I mentioned two years ago that Flickr user 翁明毅 has posted 122 photos of this species growing wild in Taiwan: Search: idesia polycarpa | Flickr Disanthus cercidifolius has beautiful leaves - no-one would grow this for the flowers, which are hard to find under the leaves anyway. Here is a rhododendron that surely should have got the epithet auriculatum, but no, that went to something else; this one, with the best eared leaves, is called Rhododendron phaeochrysum var. levistratum. [This has been corrected below - it's R. orbiculare, and I am replacing the photos so they have this name]. Rhododendron decorum has somewhat similarly-shaped leaves, some eared, some not, but the not-eared ones look like badminton paddles. I have room for a couple more photos, and since the last one was a bark photo, and since I never get the bark on this Lagerstroemia subcostata var. fauriei in focus, I'll include these here.
Wrapping up this visit, here are three fruits and a flower, none of them new to this forum. I never see Camellia fruits. I think this is C. japonica. It took me a while to decide this might be a holly, which it turns out I last posted seven years ago. It's very unusual with the relatively large leaves, and single fruits on long upright stems - Ilex pedunculosa. The award for best colour on the entrance plaza goes to Sorbus 'Joseph Rock'. Rosa x odorata 'Mutabilis' is still going strong. Usually flowers showing nice colour variation are too spread out to show up in one photo, but it was co-operative last week.
Definitely a Cotoneaster of the C. rehderi persuasion (C. rehderi specifically is a weed in our region). The Key to Series Bullati starting on page 219 of Fryer & Hylmo, Cotoneasters (2009, Timber Press, Portland/London) contains 16 species including C. rehderi.
Thank you. I looked up "Bullati", came up with Cotoneaster bullatus, which according to Wikipedia was considered to possibly be naturalized in British Columbia, "although this is now considered to be the closely related C. rehderi, which was formerly treated as a variety of this species, C. bullatus var macrophylla". Garden Explorer's photos of C. bullatus show the pilose leaf undersides that would have convinced me from the start that this at least was Cotoneaster. The C. bullatus on Garden Explorer is not at the same location as the one that I photographed above. And now that you've given me that name, I think it's the same plant that I posted in 2016 (it's the same plot): September 2016 in the Garden - Showy fruits I have photos, maybe not posted, from 2012 with the label - I think red tag means there are questions about the name. I'm prepared to believe that there is still a label, but two garden people were helping me look for it and we didn't find it.
Nice work finding all of these things, Wendy. I suspect Ron is correct on the Cotoneaster identification. It's high time for a review of the genus in the Botanical Garden. Our plants of this Peter Wharton collection have not shown any self-seeding tendency, but this doesn't mean they won't. Cotoneaster isn't the only genus in this group (i.e., many that are challenging to identify and/or potentially invasive). Rubus and the pinnate-leaved Sorbus come to mind... It might be easier just to chuck the lot of them (believe me I've considered it). Please note that the Rhododendron cited above as R. phaeochrysum var. levistratum is actually R. orbiculare. The attached image from 2013 shows both. The two are correctly labelled, but the branches are intertwined.
This is not a timely posting, but I just came across a page that Ron B linked to on Facebook with a very detailed description of Idesia polycarpa and many excellent captioned photos: Idesia polycarpa - Trees and Shrubs Online. And props to the search engines that recognized that the original posting for "Odessa polycarpa" was referring to Idesia. By the time I went back to FB to look up the plant, RonB had posted the link with the "Idesia" name.
And props to the search engines that recognized that the original posting for "Odessa polycarpa" was referring to Idesia Since we don't know where Sean got that combination and why he was using it probably best to not call it incorrect until the back story is known. In the meantime I had the same experience of a search engine automatically redirecting to Idesia polycarpa, did not find O. polycarpa being accounted for in a few typical places to check botanical naming.
For whatever reason still not finding Odessa polycarpa on the web. Including in the International Plant Names Index. With not even a genus Odessa coming up. Later: I see that Sean has changed his identification on the Facebook feed to Idesia polycarpa.
