Cornus sunhangii T.Deng, Z.Y.Lv & Z.M.Li

Cornus sunhangii was described from a small population found at around 2000 m asl in north Mêdog Co. in Tibet (Xizang). Closely resembing C. capitata, these plants differed in a number of morphological characters. While the bracts are of a similar shape and size to those of C. capitata, the fruit can be up to three times larger (c. 7 cm in diameter), held on a longer peduncle. The foliage appears superficially closer to C. hongkongensis, with a near-glabrous abaxial surface with much sparser trichomes than C. capitata (Lv et al. 2019). Along with other minor botanical differences, these were considered reasonable grounds to justify species rank, an assessment subsequently confirmed by molecular analysis (Lv et al. 2019).

Besides the type locality, it seems that Cornus sunhangii also occurs as a disjunct population in Manipur, northeast India. In 2012 a population of trees (up to 10 m in height) of an unidentified Cornus species was found by Paul Barney and Nick Macer in Quercus lamellosa forest on Khorung Peak, Ukhruhl. Tentatively identified as Cornus aff. capitata, what they saw clearly differed from that species in the more glabrous foliage and larger fruit that dropped green from the tree – never turning the familiar red-pink of C. capitata when fully ripe (Macer 2014). A few aberrant autumn flowers on high branches appeared to be white, rather than primrose-yellow as in C. capitata (N. Macer, pers. comm. 2023). Macer and Barney’s discovery was initially determined as C. sunhangii by the Cornus authority Qiu-Yun (Jenny) Xiang (N. Macer, pers. comm. 2024), indicating a new locality for the species (eFlora of India 2021) and suggesting that the full extent of its range has yet to be established. The leaf characters in some plants raised from this collection differ in some details from the typical species as described by Lv et al. (2019), for instance in the number of leaf veins either side of the midvein (up to 5), and the broader leaf shape.

Macer and Barney returned to the region in 2013 and collected the same plant from Shirui Peak (N. Macer, pers. comm. 2026). It seems very likely that Cornus capitata found by Frank Kingdon Ward on what was then called Shiroi Peak in 1948 may in fact have been C. sunhangii, though no herbarium collection has yet come to light; Kingdon-Ward reported that he had not seen C. capitata growing widely in that area (Kingdon-Ward 1952).

Cornus sunhangii is included in the present account on the basis of two introductions made by Macer, NJM 12.048 and NJM 13.046, represented by a small number of plants. The latter was fleetingly listed in the RHS Plant Finder (2017–2019, as Cornus capitata aff.). A plant from NJM 12.048 has established well at Tregrehan, Cornwall and has reached approx. 2 m in height, having had to contend with browsing deer. Given its relatively recent introduction, its hardiness and ornamental value in relation to the other evergreen big-bracted species in cultivation is yet to be properly evaluated, though the Tregrehan plant is untroubled by –3°C (T. Hudson, pers. comm. 2026)