Skimmia × confusa
Credits
New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.
Recommended citation
'Skimmia × confusa' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Editorial Note
The description below was misapplied by Bean (1981) to Skimmia laureola, writing before the identity and parentage of this hybrid was appreciated. The error was acknowledged by Clarke in the Supplement (1988), and the entry has been adapted here to refer to the correct material.
A low dioecious shrub of fairly compact habit, usually under 3 ft high. Leaves on flowering shoots narrowly oblong-obovate or oblong-elliptic, rarely quite elliptic, 21⁄2 to 41⁄2 in. long, 1 to 11⁄2 in. wide, acute to slightly acuminate at the apex, tapering from the middle or slightly above it to a cuneate or roundish base, rich green above, aromatic when crushed; petiole green, 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. long. Inflorescence of male plants fairly lax, pyramidal, up to 4 in. long and up to 3 in. wide at the base on the stronger shoots. Flowers sweetly scented, opening in spring. Sepals five, semi-ovate or deltoid, obtuse. Petals five, cream-coloured, semi-erect. Stamens five, with orange anthers. Fruits not seen [this description having been based on the male cultivar ‘Kew Green], purplish black on wild plants.
Investigation by Nigel Taylor has shown that a 9 ft high female plant growing in the Isabella Plantation, a woodland garden in Richmond Park near London, believed to have been S. multinervia, is in fact a form of this hybrid (there are younger propagations of this material at Kew). This plant bears a deceptively close resemblance to S. laureola, as does a male form of this hybrid which was previously confused with it at Kew – i.e. the cultivar ‘Kew Green’. For a discussion of the misidentification, and its disentangling, see Taylor’s article in Bot. Mag. (Kew Mag.) 4: 193 (1987).
'Kew Green'
A male form, which gained fame as a large planting at Kew by the Victoria Gate, misidentified as S. laureola. The origin of this clone is unrecorded, nor is anything known of the provenance of very similar plants at Borde Hill in Sussex. The plants are very handsome, with their large trusses of creamy fragrant flowers. They are somewhat dwarfer than the common male clone of S. japonica, from which they differ in their yellowish white pentamerous flowers, which do not open so widely as in that species. They stand full sun, but should also flower well in shade.