For this week's garden inventory, we're trying to verify the information and labels for plants by taxonomic groupings instead of by planted beds. Our priorities for this inventory round are plants in the Styracaceae family (e.g., Melliodendron xylocarpum), Poaceae (e.g., Harpochloa falx, Berberidaceae (minus Epimedium, e.g., Mahonia ×media 'Charity'), Ericaceae (minus Rhododendron, e.g., Enkianthus campanulatus), conifers (e.g., Pinus thunbergii) and the family Lardizabalaceae, such as the plant in today's image, Holboellia angustifolia.
A monoecious plant, both female and male flowers are present on the same individual plant (Vanderbilt University has a small resource that explains sexual systems in flowering plants). Shown in today's photograph are the fragrant female flowers. Plants for a Future describes the plant as having a “startling blue-metallic colour”, but I've yet to see a fruit (or taste its edible pulp!).
Photography resource link: for inspiration, an iris study and tour by frequent BPotD contributor, bbum@flickr (Bill). Bill put together this set of photographs from a recent walk in his San Jose, California neighbourhood. I've a personal attachment to irises so his set of photos resonated for me on more than an aesthetic level.
Previously known in the trade as Holboellia fargesii, H. angustifolia is much sought after by lovers of evergreen climbers. Its neat, palmately compound leaves are, well, neat. Here at UBC, it grows like a bomb, but in colder gardens the species probably suffers. I think it's the perfect covering for a shaded chainlink fence.
Unfortunately, holboellias are difficult to propagate from stem cuttings. Every year in the propagation section of my horticulture techniques course, I bring along a few metres of stem for the students to try, and every so often somebody gets it right and gets to take home a rooted plant. If I was a better scientist, I'd figure out what set of conditions promotes rooting. There is some commercial production of this species, but it is limited and plants are expensive, which suggests that I'm not the only one who has trouble.
Daniel states above that the female flowers are fragrant, but it looks to me that both male and female flowers share that characteristic. In this species, both male and female flowers are abundantly produced, but in others it appears that the males are rarer. This makes identification difficult, as the dichotomous keys we use (from the Flora of China) often require the identifier to look at stamen characteristics.
...art work...
My Holboellia angustifolia bloomed for the first time this year. The flowers were white! I was hoping for purple. Any idea what happened?