Kindly sponsored by a member of the International Dendrology Society.
Owen Johnson (2024)
Recommended citation
Johnson, O. (2024), 'Nyssa javanica' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Tree to 30m, but sometimes much smaller. Twigs usually with dense woolly hairs at first. Leaf lanceolate to ovate to obovate, acute, [4–]10–15[–23] cm × 3–5 cm, variably leathery and glossy, with woolly hairs becoming confined to underneath the main veins; main veins in 8–15 pairs which are conspicuous viewed from beneath; margin entire or sometimes with 1 or 2 large teeth; leaf-stalk [7–]15–35 mm long. Flowers in more or less globose heads on common stalks 10–35 mm long; male flowerhead with the flowers on pedicles 1–4mm, female flowerhead with almost sessile individual flowers. Drupe purplish, large, 14–26 × 12–15 mm. (Flora of China 2021).
Distribution Bhutan Myanmar China Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Yunnan India At moderate elevations in the E Himalaya Indonesia Laos Malaysia Vietnam
Habitat Tropical and warm-temperate forests, to 2500 m.
USDA Hardiness Zone 8
RHS Hardiness Rating H4
Conservation status Not evaluated (NE)
Nyssa javanica was first described by Carl Ludwig Blume in 1826, from the evergreen equatorial forests of Java. (Blume did not recognise his trees as Nyssa, creating instead two new genera, Agathisanthes and Ceratostachys, neither of which has remained in use.) Another defunct genus, Daphniphyllopsis, was described by Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz to cover the same taxon in 1875, before Walter Wangerin finally found it a place in Nyssa in 1910: both its distribution and its glossy, red-flushing leaves can make this plant’s true allegiance hard to discern, although like all other species of Nyssa it is deciduous.
Within its huge natural range Nyssa javanica, as currently understood, is understandably variable. In cultivation in temperate Europe, interest has so far focused on one isolated, northern population occurring in open forests at an elevation of around 1000 m in Hunan in southern China (Flora of China 2021). Distinct in its small stature and much shorter, flimsier leaves c. 4–5 cm long, this population was first described as a new species, N. leptophylla, by W.P. Fang and T.P. Chen in 1975 (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2024). In their 1993 revision of the genus, which was based on physiological features, Jun Wen and Tod Stuessy did not sample this taxon, but remarked that its differences from N. javanica appeared minor (Wen & Stuessy 1993). In their more recent and groundbreaking phylogenetic study of Nyssa, Wang et al. (2012) also failed to sample N. leptophylla, but it is perhaps illuminating that Wang’s results placed N. wenshanensis W.P. Fang & Soong in apparent synonymy with N. sinensis, even though this was another of the taxa that Wen and Stuessy had assessed as close to if not identical with N. javanica. Meanwhile N. yunnanensis, which Wen and Stuessy had also grouped with N. javanica, turned out from Wang’s analysis to be closely related neither to N. javanica nor to N. sinensis. As of 2024, Plants of the World Online (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2024), whose taxonomy is usually followed by Trees and Shrubs Online unless there seems very clear evidence to the contrary, continued to place N. leptophylla in synonymy with N. javanica; but this is clearly a taxon in need of more detailed study.
Seed purporting to be from this Hunan population had reached Europe from a collection made in 1998 by the Qingpu Paradise Horticultural Co. Ltd. (QPH 98149), although it has to be observed that the resulting seedlings seem closer to typical Nyssa sinensis, in terms of foliage features at least, than they are to N. leptophylla as originally described. One seedling planted in precautionary shelter outside the wall of the walled garden at Tregrehan, Cornwall, in 2001 was eight metres tall by 2024, and shows a good red autumn colour (Tree Register 2024). Another at the Wynkcoombe Hill arboretum in West Sussex, purchased via Panglobal Plants in 2012, was four metres tall in 2017, where in deeper shade it turns pale yellow. Another of comparable stature is thriving at the Leasowes Arboretum in much frostier Shropshire (T. Christian pers. obs.), and is outstanding for the rich red of its unfolding leaves through summer. ‘Nyssa leptophylla’ is now sold – always, presumably, from the QPH seed – by nurseries across the United Kingdom, Ireland and France; in terms of their hardiness, their probably small ultimate stature, the general appearance of their foliage and their autumn colour, it seems best to consider these plants, in garden terms at least, as equivalents to N. sinensis. (The hardiness zones suggested above derive from this population, but are necessarily vague so far.)
One independent collection which seems much more typical of Nyssa javanica was made by Tom Hudson from streamside woods in Yen Bai province, northern Vietnam, at 1800 m; planted in 2008 in woodland shelter at Tregrehan, a single tree grown from this seed has also thrived, withstanding 5°C of frost, and was eight metres tall in 2024 (Tree Register 2024). Typically for a deciduous plant from a warm-temperate zone, it holds onto its foliage until November, when this can show some yellow (T. Hudson pers. comm.). The leaves are much longer and shinier than is the case for cultivated ‘N. leptophylla’ and show c.13 pairs of veins, making for a handsome if ever-so-slightly anonymous looking tree.