Correa backhouseana Hook.

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Credits

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

Recommended citation
'Correa backhouseana' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/correa/correa-backhouseana/). Accessed 2025-06-23.

Family

Rutaceae

Genus

Correa

Infraspecifics

C lawrenciana

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

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

Recommended citation
'Correa backhouseana' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/correa/correa-backhouseana/). Accessed 2025-06-23.

Buff-coloured lamina lower surfaces on Correa backhouseana (Arboretum Het Leen Eeklo, Belgium – 16 May 2017). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Editorial Note

The correct spelling of this species is Correa backhouseana. The alternative spelling C. backhousiana is still regularly encountered, and was used by Bean up to and including the eighth edition. We have amended the spelling here ahead of a full revision when sponsorship is received. TC, July 2022.

A densely branched shrub, attaining a height of 15 ft in the wild state, less in cultivation; branchlets greyish brown, slender, clad when young with stellate hairs. Leaves opposite, ovate-elliptic, rounded or blunt at the apex, rounded or slightly cordate at the base, 3⁄5 to 12⁄5 in. long, margin entire, very dark green above, densely clad below with rust-coloured down; leaf-stalks 1⁄5 to 1⁄3 in. long. Flowers solitary or in few-flowered cymes, more or less pendulous; calyx cup-shaped, with the rim level all round or with four very shallow teeth; petals greenish yellow, rather thick, united into a funnel-shaped corolla about 1 in. long, with acute lobes; stamens eight, protruding beyond the mouth of the corolla; the four stamens inserted opposite the lobes have the filaments widened in the lower half, while in the other four they are of almost equal width throughout their length. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 289.

Native of Tasmania on the north and west coasts. It thrives very well at Tresco Abbey in the Isles of Scilly, where it is used as a hedging-plant, and has also been grown in other mild gardens, usually as “C. speciosa” or “C. virens”. It is closely allied to C. reflexa (speciosa) but the densely downy undersides of the leaves distinguish it.

Stellate pubescence on Correa backhouseana branchlet (Arboretum Het Leen Eeklo, Belgium – 16 May 2017). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Flower on Correa backhouseana, with funnel-shaped corolla and protruding stamens (Arboretum Het Leen Eeklo, Belgium – 16 May 2017). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Foliage on Correa backhouseana, with opposite leaves and ovate or ovate-elliptic laminas (Arboretum Het Leen Eeklo, Belgium – 16 May 2017). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Flowering specimen of Correa backhouseana at Arboretum Het Leen Eeklo, Belgium (16 May 2017). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

C lawrenciana Hook

This species, a native of Tasmania and Victoria, closely approaches the preceding in some of its forms, but may always be distinguished by the stamens, all eight of which are alike (cf. the description of C. backhousiana above). Being a montane species it is likely to prove hardier than the other Tasmanian correas. At Brodick Castle in the Isle of Arran it thrives very well; a plant 8 ft high and 6 ft across was damaged in a gale and removed in the spring of 1965, but young replacements are already flowering freely (1967).