Cotinus coggygria × szechuanensis
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Credits
Owen Johnson (2025)
Recommended citation
Johnson, O. (2025), 'Cotinus coggygria × szechuanensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Infraspecifics
Artificial hybrids, intermediate in features between the parents; shrubs of moderate stature, with leaves smaller, rounded and less flat than is typical for European Cotinus coggygria.
The Chinese Cotinus szechuanensis was introduced to Europe from western Sichuan in 1993 by Roy Lancaster (L 2028), a former Curator of the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens (Edwards & Marshall 2019). At Hilliers Nurseries, Peter Dummer and Peter Moore realised that this diminutive species with its small, almost round leaves had great potential for breeding more compact garden Smokebushes, and experimentally crossed it with the purple-leaved C. coggygria clone ‘Velvet Cloak’. One seedling was selected by Moore in 1997, the same year he became Propagator of the nearby Longstock Park Nursery (Edwards & Marshall 2019; Dirr 2009; Moore 2024), it is sold as C. DUSKY MAIDEN (‘Londus’).
'Londus'
Synonyms / alternative names
Cotinus DUSKY MAIDEN
DUSKY MAIDEN, the only Cotinus so far to incorporate genes from the Chinese C. szechuanensis, has quickly become one of the most popular garden Smokebushes; it is compact, and its small, rounded leaves inherit their subtle purple colour from C. coggygria ‘Velvet Cloak’ and their pretty, slightly pie-crust edge from the Chinese plant. The flower- and seed-heads are purplish and profuse, and in autumn the leaves turn orange-red (Edwards & Marshall 2019). Cuttings root more easily than those of the purple-leaved clones of C. coggygria (Hatch 2024).
