Ehretia acuminata
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Ehretia acuminata' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Cordia thyrsiflora Siebold & Zucc.
- Ehretia thyrsiflora (Siebold & Zucc.) Nakai
- Ehretia ovalifolia Hassk.
- Ehretia serrata var. obovata Lindl.
- Ehretia acuminata var. obovata (Lindl.) I.M.Johnst.
- Ehretia serrata Roxb.
Editorial Note
Ehretia acuminata was described by Robert Brown from plants found in the environs of Sydney (Port Jackson), Australia, whereas the type of Ehretia ovalifolia Hassk. appears to have been Japanese (it came from the Dutch East India Company’s garden at Bogor, Java, ‘where there were several Japanese plants received through the company’s station at Nagasaki’ (Bean 1981)).
Bean notes [H.H.] Heine as having confirmed the synonymy of the East Asian taxa Ehretia ovalifolia Hassk. (1844) and E. thyrsiflora (Siebold & Zucc.) Nakai (1922); of the two names, the former has priority, even though E. thyrsiflora has continued to be used for Japanese and Chinese plants – for example, in the Flora of China treatment by Zhu, Riedl & Kamelin (1995).
Zhu, Riedl & Kamelin note that East Asian plants are ‘not specifically different’ from the Australian type (indeed, Bean notes that Wilson’s introduction from China was originally introduced under the name E. acuminata).
The text below is adapted and updated from Bean.
A small deciduous tree 15 to 30 ft high in this country, of open, spreading habit; young shoots soon glabrous, marked with pale spots. Leaves alternate, oval, ovate, or slightly obovate, 3 to 7 in. long, 11⁄2 to 3 in. wide, smaller on the flowering shoots, tapered or rounded at the base, short-pointed, toothed; furnished above when young with small appressed hairs which soon fall away, tufted in the vein-axils beneath; stalk 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long. Flowers fragrant, white, produced in August in terminal pyramidal panicles 3 to 8 in. long; the corolla is 1⁄4 in. across, deeply five-lobed; calyx with five rounded lobes. Fruit a globose drupe 1⁄6 in. wide, at first orange, finally black; rarely seen in this country. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 440.
Native of Southeast Asia, Malaysia, China, Japan, New Guinea and Australia; rare in cultivation. The species is interesting botanically but is not showy. Although tender when young, and liable to have its shoots winter-killed, the [East Asian] plant grown as E. thyrsiflora is perfectly hardy in the adult state at Kew, where there is a tree by King William’s Temple, planted in 1904, which is 30 ft high and 51⁄4 ft in girth, with a deeply corrugated bark (1967; 33 ft high in 1976). There is a specimen 37 ft high at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, Eire (1966). A nearly allied, or the same, plant was introduced in 1795 from the Himalaya, and grown in the early part of last century as E. serrata Roxb.
Specimens: Kew, near Main Gate, 40 × 33⁄4 ft (1984); Spetchley Park, Worcs., 40 × 51⁄4 ft (1981); Bath Botanic Garden, 48 × 3 ft (1984).
