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Stachyurus praecox
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This genus has been sponsored and new text is being prepared.
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Stachyurus praecox' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- S. japonicus Steud.
Infraspecifics
A deciduous shrub, said to become as much as 10 ft high in Japan, but rarely more than half as high in England. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, glabrous, 3 to 7 in. long, with a long slender apex, toothed at the margin. Flowers twelve to twenty together, in stiff drooping racemes 2 to 3 in. long, each flower 1⁄3 in. across, pale yellow. Bot. Mag., t. 6631.
Native of Japan, and quite hardy. Its greatest merit in the garden is its early-flowering nature. In favourable years it will be in full flower by the middle of February, and ordinarily, not more than a month later. The flower-spikes are formed in the axils of the leaves and attain their full length in autumn, and, although exposed to whatever inclemencies the winter may bring, remain unscathed. Unseasonable warmth in the early part of the year, followed by a rough cold spell, will sometimes injure the flowers. But on the whole they are very hardy, and when the reddish leafless branches are hung with yellow racemes 1 in. or less apart there are few things in the garden more pleasing at that early season.
'Magpie'
Seedlings come white DJH
var. matsuzakii (Nakai) Makino ex H.Hara
Synonyms
S. matsuzakii Nakai
S. lancifolius Koidz.
A more robust variant of the species, with stouter branches and larger leaves and fruits, confined to maritime localities in southern Japan and the Ryukyus.
