Stranvaesia

A genus of about five species of evergreen shrubs and small trees, ranging from the Himalaya and N.E. India to China, S.E. Asia, the Philippines and Borneo. It is closely allied to Photinia and there is no constant character of foliage or flower to distinguish them. The differential character that has been mainly relied on is that in Stranvaesia the closely united carpels form, in the fruiting stage, a sort of stone, which is enclosed by the receptacle at the base and is loosely covered by the free upper part of the receptacle. This ‘stone’ is said to dehisce when the fruit is fully mature, but this character has not been observed on living plants, and the splitting or breaking of the upper part of the carpels seen in some herbarium specimens may be the result of pressing and drying. Stranvaesia was submerged in Photinia by C. Kalkmann in Blumea, Vol. 21 (1973), pp. 416–17; S. davidiana had been transferred to that genus earlier. Stranvaesia is, however, recognised by Vidal, whose monograph on the genus was published in Adansonia, Vol. 5 (1965), pp. 229–35.

The genus was named by Lindley in honour of the Hon. William Fox Strangways, later Earl of Ilchester (d. 1865), ‘a learned and indefatigible investigator of the flora of Europe.’