Cestrum elegans (Brongn.) Schlecht.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Cestrum elegans' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/cestrum/cestrum-elegans/). Accessed 2024-04-24.

Genus

Cestrum

Synonyms

Habrothamnus elegans Brongn.
C. purpureum (Lindl.) Standley

Infraspecifics

Other taxa in genus

Cestrum parqui

Glossary

acuminate: Narrowing gradually to a point.
berry: Fleshy indehiscent fruit with seed(s) immersed in pulp.
clone: Organism arising via vegetative or asexual reproduction.
compound: Made up or consisting of two or more similar parts (e.g. a compound leaf is a leaf with several leaflets).
cordate: Heart-shaped (i.e. with two equal lobes at the base).
corolla: The inner whorl of the perianth. Composed of free or united petals often showy.
entire: With an unbroken margin.
globose: globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
lanceolate: Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
pendent: Hanging.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Cestrum elegans' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/cestrum/cestrum-elegans/). Accessed 2024-04-24.

The Cestrum elegans flower is dominated by a tubby corolla tube with only small lobes. Quite tender, it can make an elegantly arching shrub or a rather straggly one (Morrab Subtropical Gardens, Penzance, UK; 15th May 2023). Image Julian Sutton.

A large, evergreen shrub or small tree of loose, graceful, pendent growth; young shoots downy. Leaves 3 to 4 in. long, one-third as wide, entire, lanceolate, acuminate, the base rounded to cordate, dull deep green, downy. Flowers in dense, compound racemes; corolla rich purplish red, tubular, swelling upwards, 3⁄4 in. long, but contracted at the mouth to five small triangular lobes. Fruit a grape-like, globose, deep red-purple berry, 3⁄4 in. wide. Bot. Mag., t. 5659.

Native of Mexico and a well-known cool-greenhouse shrub which has been in cultivation 100 years or more. It is hardy in the milder parts of Britain. I saw it beautifully in flower in Col. Stephenson-Clarke’s garden at Binstead, Isle of Wight, in June 1939.

The species varies considerably in such characters as length and colour of corolla and size of berry. In var. longiflorum Francey the flowers are more than 1 in. long; in the garden clone ‘Smithii’, figured as var. smithii (Hort.) Bailey in Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 249, they are pink.

C fasciculatum (Schlecht.) Miers

Synonyms
Meyenia fasciculata Schlecht

It is mainly in its garden characters that this species differs from C. elegans; it is earlier flowering and has flowers of a purer shade of red in a more compact inflorescence. Botanically, it differs from that species in having the corolla downy or hairy on the outside. Native of Mexico. Bot. Mag., t. 4183.

C 'Newellii'

A plant of garden origin, raised by a Mr Newell of Downham Market, Norfolk, shortly before 1880. Its parentage is unknown, but most probably it is a seedling of one or other of the two preceding species; it has flowers of a more vivid shade of crimson than either and was given an Award of Meriti 1951.

Cestrum fasciculatum 'Newellii' trained against a sunny wall in a sheltered, private town garden in Guernsey. 16 April 2023. Image Tom Christian.