Paliurus hemsleyanus
Sponsor
Kindly sponsored by
Dansk Dendrologisk Forening, The Danish Dendrology Society
Credits
Owen Johnson (2024)
Recommended citation
Johnson, O. (2024), 'Paliurus hemsleyanus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Common Names
- Chinese Coin Tree
Shrub or tree to 20 m. Paired spines both straight and standing above the twig; twig with dense brown pubescence at first. Leaves evergreen, ovate to broadly elliptic, large (4–12 × 3–9 cm), margin crenate to serrulate; veins with dense brown hairs underneath; petiole densely pubescent, (6–)8–20 mm long. Drupe large (20–35 mm wide), base conical, apex flattened, wing broad, papery to leathery. (Chen & Schirarend 2007).
Distribution China Anhui, Chongqing, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.
Habitat Mountain forests, to 1600 m.
USDA Hardiness Zone 6
RHS Hardiness Rating H5
Conservation status Not evaluated (NE)
First described by Alfred Rehder in 1931, Paliurus hemsleyanus resembles the European P. spina-christi in its showy sombrero-shaped fruits but differs very obviously in its much larger, glossier, evergreen leaves, which with their three conspicuous veins from the base – a hallmark feature of this genus – consequently look more like the foliage of Viburnus davidii or Clematis armandii.
Although this is a familiar garden plant in parts of China (Chen & Schirarend 2007) it remains an exceedlingly rare collectors’ tree in the west. At the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in southern England, the older of two accessions has grown happily into a small tree, 7 m tall and with a bole 19 cm broad at a metre from the ground (Tree Register 2024). NBG 94/312, distributed by Nanjing Botanical Garden, has also been grown in the cooler conditions of Howick Hall, Northumberland (Howick Hall Arboretum 2024). The species’ ultimate hardiness is far from clear; it has been cultivated at the ELTE Botanical Garden in Budapest, Hungary (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 2024) but this may have been under glass.
In North America the species was, at least, once grown at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in North Carolina (Hatch 2024).