Welcome to the first entry in UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research's Botany Photo of the Day!
The story: A few weeks ago, Quentin invited Tim Bray and Lauren Wood to visit the garden. Tim and Lauren have visited UBC Botanical Garden in the past (as evidenced by photos on Tim's site), but there's never been any interaction with researchers or staff. We thought it time to change that!
We gave them a rainy day tour followed by a technology chat and lunch. Needless to say, Lauren and Tim are brilliant, and I'm going to incorporate at least some (if not all) of their suggestions in the garden site and elsewhere.
Botany Photo of the Day is the first manifestation of their ideas. Tim and Lauren were particularly enamoured of Melliodendron xylocarpum, so it seemed like a great choice for the first photograph!
Be sure to check out what Tim Bray wrote about the day in his weblog entry, Melliodendron.
A beautiful image of a rare, spectacular plant we're calling Chinese parasol storax. Melliodendron xylocarpum--the name means something like woody fruited honey tree--is, according to the 1998 book "Rare and Precious Plants of China," native to China's southern provinces at between 500 and 1500 metres. Not an elevation to give much confidence in its cold hardiness, but because it has wintered here completely unscathed since planting (1996), I suspect that it had a more extensive historical range. Melliodendron is in Styracaceae (storax or snowbell family) and monotypic (a single species in the genus) and is probably closely related to Rehderodendron and Sinojackia, both of which have similar ribbed, woody fruits.
This is the third or fourth year that Melliodendron has flowered at UBC. Thankfully, we have 7 individuals--all planted in 1996, all, we assume from the same seed lot (the plants came to us from a commercial supplier)--and the one pictured, which is our finest specimen, will be spared the now constant crush of traffic when the others start flowering more prolifically.
These plants are gorgeous and the photos are so crisp and clear. UBC has unusual plants and I have book marked this site so I can return to it. Thanks for sharing such a beautiful web site.
Hello!
I would like to know how big are your melliodendron specimens (height and width) and in how many years they grew up to this size. How big were they planted?
I thank you very much beforehand
Jean-François DEWILDE, garden-architect, creating at the moment a Styracaceae garden.
P(aris)
A fantastic site, and brilliant effort. A great piece of work.
I have one in my yard.
I bought it about 5 years ago at an arboretum sale.
Do you know anything about them?