Escallonia leucantha
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Escallonia leucantha' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Synonyms
- E. bellidifolia Phil.
Other taxa in genus
- Escallonia alpina
- Escallonia bifida
- Escallonia × exoniensis
- Escallonia illinita
- Escallonia 'Iveyi'
- Escallonia laevis
- Escallonia 'Langleyensis'
- Escallonia macrantha
- Escallonia montevidensis
- Escallonia organensis
- Escallonia pterocladon
- Escallonia pulverulenta
- Escallonia revoluta
- Escallonia rosea
- Escallonia rubra
- Escallonia tucumanensis
- Escallonia virgata
An evergreen shrub to about 15 ft high in cultivation (taller in the wild state); branchlets downy when young. Leaves obovate to oblanceolate, 1⁄2 to 1 in. long, blunt or pointed at the apex, tapered at the base, glabrous except for the downy and prominent midrib beneath; margins finely toothed. Flowers small, white, in short racemes at the end of the laterals, together forming in effect a panicle 1 ft long and 3 to 7 in. wide; flower-stalks short and slender, downy; calyx downy, tube top-shaped, with short triangular teeth; petals about 1⁄5 in. long.
Native of Chile, common in Valdivia and Llanquihue provinces; introduced by H. F. Comber in 1927 under his No. 988. But some plants raised from these seeds, and from No. 989, are natural hybrids between E. leucantha and E. virgata, which grew nearby (Comber 981). These hybrids were originally identified as E. bellidifolia Phil., but according to Dr Sleumer this is synonymous with E. leucantha. The correct name for the cross E. leucantha × E. virgata is E. × strict a Remy emend. Sleumer (op. cit., pp. 127–9).