I was passing this shrub for a while in the mornings when I'm out without a camera, and then it lost all its leaves while I tried to find it again. So there are half a dozen leaves now, enough to show that there seem to be six pairs of leaflets, paripinnate (all paired). What seemed unique were the peg-like short shoots. When I query that, Ginkgo comes up, and yes, the shoots seem like that. The bark is smooth and shiny with lenticels maybe like on Sorbus. While roaming around the internet, I came across Caragana, which someone on the forums mentioned recently, not a plant I know, but the photo I saw had the peg-like shoots, and the stipules are appropriately spineline (but soft). I'm seeing Caragana arborescens 'Sutherland' that has the right shape. Is that what this is? Here is another, different location, that I think is the same. Edited: My neighbour has seen Caragana, though doesn't feel she knows enough about its appearance with bare stems to comment, but she did send me the link that turned out to be where I came up with the 'Sutherland' name: The Edible Windbreak: Caragana on the Prairies
I suspect it's Caragana arborescens. In the 1970s and early '80s, in the large local nursery I worked in sold C. arborescens 'Pendula' and C. arborescens 'Walker'. These two pendulous cultivars were grafted (I believe in the Netherlands—we used to buy dormant, bare-root, deciduous shrubs from a big wholesale nursery in Boskoop) and I can only surmise that the rootstock was C. arborescens. Planted in the shade, I would expect the scion to decline and the rootstock to take over. This is the only reason I can think of that a Siberian pea shrub would be planted in the West End.
Thank you. It sounds like you're not expecting Caragana to be the next great thing for Vancouver gardens, even if this were a non-suckering cultivar.
Here is what I assume is also Caragana arborescens seen in Victoria yesterday. I'm just adding it because I like them, and I have trouble remembering the name.
The leaves are trifoliate (not pinnately compound) and the inflorescences are racemose. No tiny stipular spines, either. More likely a feral Laburnun anagroides.
Thank you! The bark wasn't shiny either. I did photograph the original one recently, which didn't help my memory one bit. I was expecting to see more than five flowers.
