The whole tree from afar.

Inflorescence detail:

Sample collected before frost.

For everyone else, Emmenopterys henryi is an endangered and unusual deciduous tree that has grown to over 100 feet, though in cultivation, 60 feet is more reasonable. It is the only surviving species in a monotypic genus of the Rubiaceae family. As you can see, its flowers are unlike others. After the last Ice Age, it most disappeared from earth with only a few surviving colonies in China. These have rapidly declined with the development of rural China, the pollution and environmental changes. The tree is healthy but they require very long childhood and exact climate before reproducing. The trees in cultivation refused to bloom. The first tree in Britain to flower, in 1987 at Wakehurst Place, was more than 75 years old; the first in Europe, also decades old, was at Villa Taranto on Italy's Lake Maggiore, in 1971. The Wakehurst Place tree has not flowered since; nor have any others in Britain.

They are supposedly blooming at 6 years old at Quarryhill. There's also many other reports of Emmenopterys henryi flower displays at other gardens.

ForestFarm has these at a decent price BTW.

Apparently, this info is outdated also....

I don't remember.

"Nope, it is not a real bloom."

???

"I also feel the Quarryhill situation strange. Could it be that they used some chemicals?"

I guess anything's possible, but that would be quite a leap to believe with currently available info.

(quote) The first time that I collected seed of Magnolia wilsonii was in the fall of 1992 on Niba Shan in
western Sichuan. Hans Fliegner and Martin Staniforth from Kew, and Charles Howick and I
were on our way to Muli in southwestern Sichuan. Our guide from the Chengdu Institute of
Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had told us that it occurred on Niba Shan, so we
stopped on our way to take a look. We hunted for hours through dense forest and finally came
upon one good sized 10 meter high tree. After a thorough search of the tree, we found only one
fruit with six good seeds. We divided these three ways and found out later that Kew successfully
germinated one seed, Howick one, and Quarryhill only one. I went over the same mountain two
years later in the fall of 1994, this time with Charles Erskine and Hans Fliegner from Kew, and
Charles Howick. We were all shocked to see the area where we had found the magnolia two
years previously completely denuded and being planted with a monoculture of spruce.

We did manage to make a seed collection of Magnolia wilsonii later during that expedition in
1994. On our return to Chengdu, we decided to stop at Luoji Shan. Unlike my recent visit there,
this time we were on the other side of the picturesque range. This was long before Luoji Shan
was made a Nature Reserve. Now there is a cable car and stone steps bringing thousands of
tourists up into this botanical paradise. I first visited Luoji Shan with Charles Howick in 1990
and hadn't noticed any magnolias then. On that first visit we had started from a small Yi village
and climbed for days with porters and horses carrying our gear over the rugged steep mountains.
However, on our second visit, despite torrential rain, we spotted an area that we had overlooked
before just above the village. Here, there were several Magnolia wilsonii, though few had seed.
Our frustration with the lack of seeds was further exacerbated by their failure afterward to
germinate.

That one seed that germinated from our 1992 expedition is now a healthy three meter high tree at
Quarryhill, as wide as it is tall. Growing in Sonoma Valley in our rocky acidic soil, in mostly
sun with a little light shade from a Toona sinensis, it flowers heavily and consistently year after
year. I frequently bring visitors to see it, not just for its beauty and delightful fragrance, but
more importantly to tell the story of how it is disappearing from the wild.

Michael, I am sorry but could you cut on the sappy love songs?

Apparently, you are back onto the moonshine, and rather heavily I might add. It makes your definitions horrible and your social skills awful!

I never take myself too seriously, my Tennesse friend, and am happy to say I have enjoyed a life long interest in the world.

Anyways, the defintion of cultivar as offered is accurate in that a cultivar has a legal connotation, since it's designation is often meant to protect patent rights.

An unkown "cultivar' wouldn't be a cultivar in the strict sense of the word, a race or variety might be a more accurate term. But that would still have to be predetermined, as it truely would have to be distinct within the specie.

I would like you to know, Brandon, all kidding aside, that I am a happily married man to my first and only wife, with two smart and pretty daughters, graudated with honors with a B.S. in Biology in 1996.

I work now in the construction industry, it's a very non-p.c field. I like trees, rock n roll, books, foreigners, odd people, gracious souls, bamboo, suirrel, and pick-up trucks. I appreciate the many knowledgeable people here.

Understand the difficulty I am having, Brandon, first transribing proper english into cantonese and then back into pidgen.

Very challenging for a novice, though my wife speaks pidgen herself (native Asian dialect), she is always busy as she is an independent American woman now and pursues self-realization in a more traditionally western sense. In other words, she likes to go shopping every weekend, no time for how to communicate with both lobes for me.

As for the rest of the conversation, I'm unsure of exactly what to make of it, but I do hope it wasn't meant in an offensive way towards snasxs. I may not always understand and agree with everything she says on here, but she is still a valuable contributor deserving the same respect everyone else here does.

Michael, thank you for the self-clarification. You don't know that I lived in the Appalachian mountains for quite a while. I do not recommend moonshine, however :-) Please spend more time with your wife because your exchange with me may cause her to feel jealous, no? Let's focus on the subject of plants, trees and relative topics, ok? BTW, I never reported you to anyone. If you feel a need to discuss off topic items, feel free to email me via GW.

Again, really cool and thanks for sharing!