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Vol. 43 No. 4 Fall 1983 arno ·~a Amoldia (ISSN 0004-2633) is published quarterly in Page spnng, summer, fall, and winter by the Arnold 3 Cultivars of Japanese Plants at Arboretum of Harvard University. Brookside Gardens Carl R. Hahn and R. Subscriptions are $10.00 per year, single copies $3.00. Barry Yinger Second-class postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts. 20 Of Birds and Bayberries: Seed Dispersal Postmaster: Send address changes to: and Propagation of Three Myrica Arnoldia Species Fordham The Arnold Arboretum Alfred J. The Arborway 24 H. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 E. Wilson, Yichang, and the Kiwifruit Copynght © 1983 President and Fellows of Harvard College 23 BOOKS Etleen J Dunne, Editor Peter Del Tredici, Associate Editor Front cover photo Leaves of Cornus kousa ’Snowboy’, a vanegated dogwood cultivar recently mtroduced from Japan by Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, Maryland. Carl R Hahn, photo Back cover photo~ Fruit of the common bayberry (Mynca pensylvamca~. A1 Bussemtz, photo. Cultivars of Japanese Barry R. Yinger and Carl R. Hahn Plants at Brookside Gardens Since 1977 Brookside Gardens, a publicly some were ordered from commercial supported botanical garden within the nurseries. Montgomery County, Maryland, park sys- has maintained a collections tem, special Cultivar Names of Japanese Plants program to introduce into cultivation ornamental plants (primarily woody) not in gen- One of the persistent problems with the eral cultivation in this country. Plants that collections has been the accurate naming of appear to be well-suited for the area are Japanese cultivars. In our efforts to assign grown at the county’s Pope Farm Nursery in cultivar names that are in agreement with sufficient quantity for planting in public both the rules and recommendations of the areas, and others intended for wider cultiva- International Code of Nomenclature for tion are tested and evaluated in cooperation Cultivated Plants, 1980, we encountered with nurseries and public gardens through- several problems. The most obvious was out the United States. Information on the language, as virtually all printed references plants is kept in the county’s computer sys- to these plants are in Japanese. However, a tem, by means of a program designed under more serious difficulty was trying to deter- the guidance of Carl Hahn, chief of horticul- mine which Japanese names satisfied the ture. The collections are maintained and Code and which, regardless of how com- evaluated under the supervision of the monly they are used, had to be set aside. In curator, Philip Normandy. resolving these difficulties, we arrived at To date more than 1000 different plants what we believe will serve as ground rules have been acquired, mainly from Japan but for assigning English names to Japanese also from Korea, England, and Holland. The plants being introduced into the United Japanese collection includes both wild and States. cultivated plants, and the English and Dutch First, most Japanese cultivar names can be contain mostly hard-to-find species and cul- divided into two broad categories: metaphor- tivars from specialty nurseries. Many of the ical and literally descriptive. The first group is plants were collected by the authors, and easy to deal with on our terms because the names correspond to Western "fancy" names or cultivar names. They are com- monly written in Chinese characters (rather Torreya nucifera ’Gold Strike’ than Japanese phonetic symbols, known as 4 kana and do not incorporate the Japanese ("weeping") ego-no-ki (the Japanese name colloquial names of the plants. These names for Styrax japonicus refers to a clone of are usually allusions to ornamental features Styrax ~aponicus with pendulous branches. of the plants. For example: Akebono We believe that such names are contrary to ("dawn"), Shishigashira ("lion’s mane"/, and recommendations within article 31A of the Amanogawa ("Milky Way"/. Such names Code (sections g and /, which discourage are characteristic of plants that have been both the use of names that refer to an attri- cultivated and selected for a long time, often bute likely to become common in a group of centuries, particularly those included in related cultivars and the use of names that what is known as koten engei, the cultiva- incorporate the common names of plants. tion of "classical plants." Bearing these Several of these names are used in Japan for metaphorical names are such popular groups more than one cultivar, causing confusion. as Japanese maples, Japanese flowering cher- For instance, several distinct variegated cul- ries, Japanese apricots, Japanese pines, most tivars of Ginkgo biloba are marketed under azaleas, and many others. We believe these the name fuiri icho. Many names of this type names ought to be preserved and used. are also in Western literature as cultivar In the second group the name usually con- names, but we hope that they will be re- sists of a descriptive prefix added to the jected in favor of names that are more pre- Japanese colloquial name of the plant. Sev- cise and comply with the Code. eral prefixes appear again and again; the Occasionally a name surfaces that cannot most common include the following: be slipped easily into either of the categories above. For instance, in several Japanese (describing plant habit) names for selected variants the fu from fuiri shidare, pendulous has been attached to other hime, diminutive, dwarf ("variegated") yatsubusa, congested, of slow growth words to form combinations that are more precise than fuiri itself; thus arare ("hail") (descnbmg leaf characteristics) plus fu becomes ararefu, "hail-spot" variega- fuin, variegated (shirofu, white-variegated; tion, and so on. These names can, we be- kiifu, yellow-variegated) lieve, be accepted as cultivar names, albeit murasaki, purple occasionally with some reservations. The (describing flower and fruit characteristics) test must be whether a person familiar with issai, flowenng or fruiting as a young plant both the language and the plants can say that yaezaki, double flowers the use of the name is not likely to cause shikizaki, everbloommg confusion as other cultivars emerge. akabana and bembana, red, pink, scarlet, or orange flowers; shirobana, white flowers; kibana, yellow flowers) Descriptions shmoml, white fruit (akami, red fruit) The following is a list of cultivars of Japanese plants with descriptions, which we Names such as these are often written in believe will serve to distinguish each plant Japanese phonetic symbols and usually from the most similar existing cultivar of prefix the name of the species; thus shidare the same species. The reader should consult standard references (such as Jisaburo Ohwi’s The leaves of this cultivar are dark green, Flora of Japan for complete descriptions of with a distinct central splash of pale yellow. the species. Leaf measurements have been They are 14 to 18 cm long, 5 to 5.5 cm wide, given only where they differ from those of deeply toothed on the margin, and often the species. somewhat twisted. The leaf stalks are green Most of the selections described here have or yellow and reddish at the base on new variegated foliage, a reflection of the Japanese shoots. Young stems are clearly striped with interest in variegation. Historically, far more green and yellow. This is the best and most selections of variegated plants have been stable of the cultivars with central variega- produced in Japan than in any other country. tion ; it has no extraneous spots or flecks of Nearly every plant cultivated by the color to mar the effect. ’Sun Dance’ is illus- Japanese has been grown at some time in at trated (p. 62) but not named or described in least one variegated form, and some species, Fuiri Shokubutsu (Variegated Plants) by such as Ardisia ~aponica, are represented by Masato Yokoi and Yoshimichi Hirose (1978).( . scores of variegated cultivars. A complex Several specialty nurseries m Japan, includ- system for the classification and enumera- ing Garden Wako, in Yamamoto, supply this tion of variegated leaf types has developed plant, which they call Nakafu Ao-ki, mean- simultaneously. ing "central variegated Aucuba." The Japanese interest in variegated plants In the Dutch publication Dendroflora (no. remains strong today but does not approach 15/16, 1979), reference is made to a plant what it was in the 18th and 19th centuries, named Aucuba japonica ’Nabaku’, de- when collecting these plants seems to have scribed as having a conspicuously large been almost a national preoccupation. The blotch in the middle of the leaf with small three-volume Somoku Kihin Kagami, pub- yellow dots here and there. We believe the lished in 1827, described over 500 variegated epithet ’Nabaku’ is a misspelling of selections, which had been chosen by a "Nakafu," a name that has been applied to panel of 90 hobbyists and illustrated by fa- several cultivars ofAucuba japonica with mous artists. This was followed in 1829 by the five-volume Somoku Kinyoshu, which pictured over 1000 cultivars in the same Aucuba japonica ’Sun Dance’ format. These plants, as well as those selected for showy flowers were (and still are) grown in pots and admired individually rather than as part of a garden landscape. Most of these plants have been cultivated at Brookside Gardens for three years or more, and most have been observed in cultivation in Japan in several seasons as well. Aucuba japonica Thunb. ’Sun Dance’. New cultivar name, assigned by Barry R. Yinger. Yinger Collection No. 267. 6 central leaf variegation. ’Sun Dance’ seems Japanese name for this plant: Ogon Chosen to be distinct from the cultivar described in Maki or "golden Korean Podocarpus. " This Dendroflora, however. selection is sold under the Japanese common name by several nurseries, including Shibamichi Kanjiro, in Angyo. Carpinus japonica B1. ’Ebi Odori’. New cultivar name, assigned by Barry R. Yinger. Yinger Collection No.

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