Symplocos dryophila
Sponsor
Kindly sponsored by
Peter Hoffmann
Credits
Owen Johnson (2024)
Recommended citation
Johnson, O. (2024), 'Symplocos dryophila' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Synonyms
- Symplocos delavayi Brand
- Symplocos forrestii W.W. Sm.
- Symplocos longipetiolata Rehder
- Symplocos siamensis Brand
Shrub or tree to c. 12 m tall. Twigs glabrous except at the base between bud-scars. Leaf evergreen, elliptic to narrowly obovate, 6–12(–23) × 2–6 cm, leathery, hairless, pointed at both ends, margin entire or with some inconspicuous sharp or rounded teeth; side-veins in 7–18 pairs; petiole 10–25 mm long. Flowers white, strong-smelling, in usually branched racemes 6–15 cm tall; corolla 4–10 mm wide; stamens 40–75. Fruit ellipsoid, 5–12 × 3–7 mm, dark blue to black. Flowering (China) March–May, fruiting July. (Wu & Nooteboom 1996; Jeffrey & Nooteboom 1977).
Distribution Myanmar Cambodia China S Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan India In the eastern Himalayas Nepal Sri Lanka Thailand Vietnam
Habitat Mixed forests, 2100–3200 m asl.
USDA Hardiness Zone 9
RHS Hardiness Rating H4
Conservation status Least concern (LC)
One of a multitude of easily confused evergreen Symplocos from the mountain forests of warm-temperate and subtropical south and east Asia, S. dryophila has long been cultivated in the mild and moist (but not frost-free) microclimate of Caerhays Castle in Cornwall, UK, where it seems to need both shade and deep shelter and currently grows as a spreading bush that represents regeneration from an older and more tree-like plant. Its white flowers, crowded in branched erect spikes, are typical for the genus; their scent is powerful but ‘not perhaps the nicest’ (Burncoose Nurseries 2024; Williams 2024). The metallic blue tint to the fruit is also characteristic, but they ripen almost black (Williams 2020) – either this plant is self-fertile, or it gets successfully pollinated by some of the other Symplocos species grown at Caerhays. As of 2024, the garden’s team were experimenting with raising seedlings for possible commercial distribution (Burncoose Nurseries 2024).
No records seem to survive to confirm this plant’s origin, but in the first decades of the 20th century Caerhays subscribed to George Forrest’s botanical exploration of some of the mountain forests where S. dryophila grows, and this species (originally described by William Wright Smith as S. forrestii), was among the plants that Forrest collected in Yunnan in 1912 and 1917 (Smith 1921). Charles Clarke’s specific name means ‘loving to grow among oaks’.