Skimmia × foremannii H.Knight

Sometime in the 1870s the Scottish nurseryman Foreman made a cross between S. japonica and S. reevesiana at the Eskdale Nurseries, Dalkeith. Only one female was raised, and this he pollinated with the best of the male seedlings. The resulting second generation hybrid was exhibited at the Spring Meeting of the Caledonian Horticultural Society in 1881 and received a First Class Certificate (Florist and Pomologist 1881, p. 70).There can be no doubt about the hybridity of the 1881 S. foremanii. But seven years later Foreman staged an exhibit at the R.H.S. Show, December 11, 1888, consisting of numerous pot-grown skimmias of his own raising, these too called S. Foremanii and awarded a First Class Certificate. But the parentage of these was given by the raiser as ‘S. oblata [S. japonica] × S. fragrans’, which, if correct, meant that he had simply fertilised a female S. japonica with pollen of the same species. This prompted a reader of the Gardeners’ Chronicle to ask ‘Did you ever hear of a “hybrid” between a bull and a cow ?’ Dr Masters, who was investigating the skimmias at this time, suspected hybridity in the specimen sent to him by Foreman, largely on the grounds that some of the fruits were obovoid. He described this skimmia as having yellow-green oblanceolate or lanceolate leaves about 3 in. long and {3/4} in. wide, tapered at each end, with reddish petioles; inflorescence many-flowered; berries scarlet, depressed-globose or pear-shaped (Gard. Chron., Vol. 5 (1889), p. 553). Despite his suspicions, Masters placed this skimmia under S. japonica as ‘Foreman’s Variety’. He seems to have been unaware of the earlier account of the undoubted hybrid mentioned above, otherwise he might have interrogated Foreman more closely. Whether any of the Foreman skimmias have been perpetuated vegetatively up to the present time it is impossible to say. Judging from cultivated plants and herbarium specimens, Foreman’s name has been or is associated with three or four different skimmias, none of which agree with Masters’ description. One characteristic of Foreman’s variety (F.C.C. 1888) was that the flowers were as numerous in each panicle as in male forms and consequently just as well-scented as well as producing very large trusses of fruit (up to forty or so berries in each), when fully fertilised.The account of Foreman’s exhibit published in the horticultural press prompted W. H. Rogers of the Red Lodge Nurseries to inform Masters of a new skimmia that he had raised about 1877, when his “S. oblata”, i.e. S. japonica, fruited for the first time. His letter, quoted by Masters, is somewhat obscure, but it appears that the plants he sent out as S. Rogersii were seedlings of the fruiting S. japonica, not a clone. The plant of which he sent a spray to Masters was, however, almost certainly a hybrid between S. japonica and S. reevesiana and accepted as such; the fruits were coloured as in the latter species, but squarish and depressed at the top (Gard. Chron., Vol. 5 (1889), p. 553). The flowers were described by Masters as structurally hermaphrodite, which merely means that the organs of both sexes were apparently fully developed, not that the plant was actually self-fertile. As in the case of Foreman’s skimmia, the plants under the name ‘Rogersii’ are not uniform. The name S. × foremanii var. rogersii (Mast.) Rehd. is based on the plant described by Masters.

[From the Supplement (Vol. V)]

The original account (1881) of the breeding of this skimmia could be misinterpreted. Knight gave the parentage of the original cross as S. japonica × S. oblata. But at that time the first name was in general use for S. reevesiana, which had been mis-identified as S. japonica by Lindley and others, while S. oblata was the name applied to the true S. japonica. However, it is arguable that the name S. × foremanii, although accepted by Rehder, is not properly established, being unsupported by any description. There is therefore much to be said for taking up the next available name for S. japonica × S. reevesiana, which is S. × rogersii Masters, and this is the name used by Brown in his study.

The hybrid cultivars raised by Rogers at the Chandlers Ford nursery were propagated, but cannot now be identified. The two clones distributed by Messrs Hillier as ‘Rogersii’ and ‘Rogersii Nana’ derive from plants raised by that nursery from the original Rogers’ clones in the 1920s. The first is a low-growing female with undulated leaves and a large, many-flowered, rounded inflorescence. The name ‘Rogersii’ for this clone is obviously incorrect, implying as it does that it derives from the original Rogers cross described by Dr Masters. Brown uses for it the name S. × rogersii ‘Nana Femina’. The other Hillier clone (‘Rogersii Nana’) is a male of dwarfer habit, less twisted leaves, and rounded heads of solid-white flowers. The cultivar ‘Helen Goodall’ is of interest as an example of a self-sown, first generation hybrid between the two species (Brown, op. cit., pp. 234–5).