Franklinia

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Franklinia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/franklinia/). Accessed 2024-04-18.

Family

Theaceae

Species in genus

Franklinia alatamaha

Glossary

alternate: Attached singly along the axis not in pairs or whorls.
apex: (pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
capsule: Dry dehiscent fruit; formed from syncarpous ovary.
Extinct: IUCN Red List conservation category: ‘there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual [of taxon] has died’.
hybrid: Plant originating from the cross-fertilisation of genetically distinct individuals (e.g. two species or two subspecies).
included: (botanical) Contained within another part or organ.
intergeneric: (of hybrids) Formed by fertilisation between species of different genera.
sessile: Lacking a stem or stalk.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Franklinia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/franklinia/). Accessed 2024-04-18.

Franklinia alatamaha in the Valley Gardens, Windsor, UK. October 2018. Image John Anderson.

A monotypic genus, consisting of the one species described below, which was discovered by John Bartram and his son William Bartram in Georgia, USA, around 1765 and is now almost certainly extinct in the wild. It is allied to Gordonia, from which it differs in the deciduous leaves, almost sessile flowers, and in the curious zigzag dehiscence of the seed-capsule, which splits into ten segments attached alternately to the base and apex of the persistent central axis (or, in Bartram’s words, ‘opening at each end oppositely by five alternate fissures’). Although many authorities have included this species in Gordonia, the modern view is that William Bartram was correct in giving it the rank of a separate genus, which he named in honour of the American statesman, philosopher, and scientist Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790).

From the Supplement (Vol.V)

An intergeneric hybrid between F. alatamaha and Gordonia lasianthus has been raised in the USA (Bull. Amer. Ass. Bot. Gard., Vol. 11, pp. 81–4 (1977)).