Escallonia tucumanensis
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Escallonia tucumanensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Other taxa in genus
- Escallonia alpina
- Escallonia bifida
- Escallonia × exoniensis
- Escallonia illinita
- Escallonia 'Iveyi'
- Escallonia laevis
- Escallonia 'Langleyensis'
- Escallonia leucantha
- Escallonia macrantha
- Escallonia montevidensis
- Escallonia organensis
- Escallonia pterocladon
- Escallonia pulverulenta
- Escallonia revoluta
- Escallonia rosea
- Escallonia rubra
- Escallonia virgata
A shrub or small tree reported to attain a height of 15 ft in the wild, occasionally 20 ft; young growths reddish, minutely downy or almost glabrous. Leaves oblong or elliptic, rather oblique, shortly acuminate or rounded and mucronate at the apex, tapered at the base into a short petiole, 2 to 3 in. long, 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. wide, glossy above, dotted with blackish glandular pits beneath. Flowers white, borne July and early August in slender panicles, which are leafy at the base, becoming bracteate towards the apex. Calyx-lobes awl-shaped, 1⁄8 to 3⁄16 in. long. Corollas about 1⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 in. wide at the mouth. Disk thin, rising at the centre around the base of the style. Capsule roundish, about 1⁄4 in. long. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 565.
A native of N.W. Argentina at 2,500 to 6,700 ft altitude; introduced to Kew in 1961 by means of seeds collected by Dr F. Vervoorst in Tucuman province. Two examples on the Temperate House Terrace, planted in 1963, have so far suffered no winter-damage apart from some scorching of the foliage, and the species is also cultivated at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, in a sheltered position. It is quite a handsome escallonia but the flowers, although remarkably large for the genus, do not make much display. It is unlikely to be tolerant of salt-laden winds.