Daphne sericea
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Daphne sericea' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Daphne collina Sm. ex Dicks.
Other taxa in genus
- Daphne acutiloba
- Daphne alpina
- Daphne altaica
- Daphne arbuscula
- Daphne aurantiaca
- Daphne bholua
- Daphne blagayana
- Daphne × burkwoodii
- Daphne caucasica
- Daphne cneorum
- Daphne genkwa
- Daphne giraldii
- Daphne glomerata
- Daphne gnidium
- Daphne × houtteana
- Daphne × hybrida
- Daphne jasminea
- Daphne jezoensis
- Daphne juliae
- Daphne kamtschatica
- Daphne kiusiana
- Daphne kosaninii
- Daphne laureola
- Daphne longilobata
- Daphne × mantensiana
- Daphne mezereum
- Daphne × neapolitana
- Daphne odora
- Daphne oleoides
- Daphne papyracea
- Daphne petraea
- Daphne pontica
- Daphne pseudomezereum
- Daphne retusa
- Daphne rodriguezii
- Daphne × rossetii
- Daphne sophia
- Daphne striata
- Daphne sureil
- Daphne tangutica
- Daphne × thauma
Editorial Note
Bean treated Daphne sericea and D. collina as distinct species, though Clarke (1988) was clear that the two ought no longer to be separated. The text below has been adapted to reflect this newer understanding of the taxonomy. Bean’s main treatment appears under the heading D. collina, and his description below refers to the form grown under that name.
An evergreen bush 2 to 3 ft high, of bushy habit; young shoots silky-hairy. Leaves obovate, tapered at the base, mostly rounded or blunt at the apex; 3⁄4 to 13⁄4 in. long, 1⁄4 to 5⁄8 in. wide, dark glossy green above, pale and very hairy beneath. Flowers fragrant, purplish rose, produced in a terminal head of ten to fifteen blossoms; they are 1⁄2 in. across, and felted with silky hairs outside; lobes roundish ovate; ovary silky. Bot. Mag., t. 428. (In plants grown as D. sericea the leaves are generally shorter, narrower, and thinly silky-hairy beneath, and the flowers are fewer (six to eight).)
Native of the Mediterranean region, with two main areas of distribution, one on the west coast of Italy from Tuscany to the Naples area and the other in Crete and southern Asia Minor.
In previous editions of this work it was stated that D. collina is ‘not very hardy’. This may have been true of the form known to the author (the species has a wide range and may well vary in this respect). But the form current in gardens at the present time appears to be perfectly hardy (more so than those grown under D. sericea), though – like most daphnes – not long-lived. The provenance of these plants (grown as D. collina) is unknown, but the early history of this former species is well documented, having been seen by Sir James Smith in March 1787 on the banks of the Volturno near Caserta, when in the company of D. Graeffer, head gardener to the King of Naples. Smith described his species five years later, partly from a specimen collected then and partly from a plant sent to Aiton at Kew by Graeffer (who had English connections, having been previously head gardener to the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court in Worcestershire). Brickell and Mathew point out that Aiton (in Hortus Kewensis) was almost certainly wrong in asserting that D. collina was cultivated by Miller in 1752, since there is no daphne in his Dictionary that matches it.