Monday, August 22, 2011

Hosta yingeri flowers and Callicarpa dichotoma 'Issia' fruit.....good combination Amanda



Barry Yinger, a past curator of the Asian Collections, collected seeds from this Hosta in 1985 on a collecting trip to Coastal South Korea. It was named for him some years later. This plant is labeled as being from that collection so that's cool. I don't know how many plants we have that were named for past Arboretum staff. I'll have to do research. Or ask Stefan.

There are a handful of species of Callicarpa including the North American native, C. americana. All are deciduous shrubs that flower on growth of the current season and produce berries in shades of purple, violet, or occasionally white. I grow the native plant both in our Adelphi garden and in the Florida garden. It's an incredibly tough plant and an important constituent of the dry understory in wild areas near the Florida garden. It grows larger than any of the Asian species. Of the Asian species, so far as I know them, C. dichotoma is the smallest, and so it may be possible to maintain it at the small end of this bed. For a few years I can cut it back completely since it flowers on new growth.

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