Daphne aurantiaca Diels

An evergreen shrub up to 5 ft high in the wild; leaves, shoots and flowers free from down. Leaves oval to obovate or oblong, pointed, tapered at the base to a very short stalk, margins recurved, 1⁄3 to 5⁄8 in. long, 1⁄8 to 3⁄8 in. wide, dull green above, pale and rather glaucous beneath with the green midrib prominently raised there. Flowers bright orange-yellow, fragrant, slenderly tubular, 1⁄2 in. long, expanding at the mouth into four broadly ovate lobes and there 3⁄16 in. wide. They are produced in May at the end of the shoots in twos or threes from the leaf-axils, making altogether a leafy panicle 2 or 3 in. long and 1 in. wide. Bot. Mag., t. 9313.

Native of S.W. China; discovered by Forrest in 1906 growing in crevices of limestone cliffs at 10,000 to 12,000 ft altitude on the eastern flank of the Lichiang Range. At Werrington Park in Cornwall it was successfully cultivated by being planted in small openings of a retaining wall where its roots had access to the soil behind. Grown thus it made plants up to 6 ft across. It was given a First Class Certificate when shown by A. K. Bulley at Chelsea in May 1927. It is tender.