{"title":"Curiosities","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery catalog has a back room. This is ours: the plants we grow because someone should, not because anyone asked. A conifer that survives in a handful of Chinese villages and almost nowhere else. A tree extinct in the wild since Jefferson was president. Two intergeneric hybrids that exist because a plantsman wondered what would happen. A Proteaceae out of southeastern Australia that has no business growing in South Carolina, and does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNothing here is chosen for being easy, and several are chosen for the opposite reason. \u003cem\u003eTorreya taxifolia\u003c\/em\u003e is among the most endangered conifers on earth, hanging on along a few ravines of the Apalachicola, and every nursery-grown plant is one more copy of a species running short of them. Others are simply strange. \u003cem\u003eDaphniphyllum\u003c\/em\u003e holds leaves like a rhododendron drawn from memory. \u003cem\u003eKadsura\u003c\/em\u003e ripens a fruit that looks assembled rather than grown. \u003cem\u003eDichroa febrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e is a hydrangea cousin whose alkaloids were used against fevers in China for centuries before anyone in the West took an interest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe list changes as plants come available and sell through. If you are the sort of gardener who reads a plant list the way other people read a menu, start here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"araucaria-angustifolia","title":"Araucaria angustifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eAraucaria angustifolia is a living relic, one of the last of an ancient conifer family that shaded the dinosaurs across the supercontinent of Gondwana. The Paraná pine belongs to the Araucariaceae, kin to the Chilean monkey puzzle, the Norfolk Island pine, the Australian bunya, and the famously rediscovered Wollemi pine, a lineage once spread worldwide and now scattered mostly across the Southern Hemisphere. Despite the common name, the tree is no true pine at all, but something far older and stranger, holding stiff, sharp, dark green leaves on the branch for a decade or more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, Araucaria angustifolia crowns the highland forests of southern Brazil, reaching into northern Argentina and Paraguay, the defining emergent of the Araucaria moist forests within the greater Atlantic Forest. A century of logging for that pale, valuable timber, together with clearing for farms and plantations, has taken an estimated ninety-seven percent of the original range, and the species is now listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. To grow one is to keep a piece of a vanishing forest alive, and to plant a tree that may outlast the gardener by generations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus name honors the Arauco region of southern Chile and the Araucano, or Mapuche, people in whose homeland the first-known species grows, while angustifolia simply means narrow-leaved. In southern Brazil the tree means winter food. Female trees, quite separate from the males, ripen enormous cones packed with a hundred or more large seeds called pinhão, gathered by the ton and boiled or roasted through the cold months, ground into flour, and celebrated at seasonal festivals. The harvest is shared with the forest, for the azure jay caches the seeds and, forgetting some, plants the next generation, a partnership on which the tree's survival partly depends.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven room, Araucaria angustifolia grows tall and columnar, self-pruning to a clean trunk topped by whorls of upturned branches that flatten with age into the candelabra or umbrella crown that names the tree, well over a hundred feet in habitat and more slowly in cultivation. For Southern gardeners the appeal is practical as well as romantic, since this species tolerates the region's heat and humid summers far better than the Chilean monkey puzzle, asking mainly for full sun and well-drained soil. Site the tree in the open as a rare specimen and living fossil, where the bold, prehistoric silhouette can stand alone against the sky.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057811132531,"sku":"ARAU-ANGU-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AraucariaangustifoliaRickFencl.jpg?v=1784305075"},{"product_id":"asimina-obovata","title":"Asimina obovata","description":"\u003cp\u003eAsimina obovata is the bigflower pawpaw, a Florida native that carries the largest, showiest blooms in a genus better known for its fruit. The pawpaws are the temperate outliers of the Annonaceae, the custard apple family whose tropical members include the cherimoya, soursop, and ylang-ylang, and Asimina alone among them ventures north into the sandy uplands of the American Southeast. The genus name descends from an early Native American word for the fruit, carried into English through the French asiminier, while obovata describes the egg-shaped leaves, broadest above the middle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn spring, as the new leaves emerge, the plant opens creamy white flowers several inches across, far larger and paler than the deep maroon bells of the common pawpaw, Asimina triloba. Beetles and flies do the pollinating, and by late summer some flowers give way to aromatic, fleshy green fruits holding large brown seeds. The fruit is edible, though most gardeners rate the flavor below that of the northern pawpaw and grow this species instead for the flowers, the foliage, and the wildlife.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a plant of the Florida scrub, at home in the peninsula's dry sandhills and sandy ridges where little else will grow, in blazing sun and sharp, fast-draining sand. Bigflower pawpaw earns a place in the native and butterfly garden as a larval host for the zebra swallowtail, whose caterpillars feed only on Asimina leaves, and for the pawpaw sphinx moth as well. Where the common pawpaw wants rich, moist woodland, this southern cousin asks for the opposite, lean sand and excellent drainage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive Asimina obovata full sun to light shade and the sandiest, sharpest soil available, with little competition from neighbors. Like other pawpaws the plant sends down a deep taproot and resents disturbance, so site the shrub thoughtfully and let the roots settle undisturbed. In a sandhill restoration, a xeric native border, or a butterfly garden, the big white spring flowers and clean summer foliage make this rare Florida endemic a quietly distinctive choice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Jay Horn and Alan Cressler\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057813393523,"sku":"ASIM-OBOV-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AsiminaobovataJayHorn.jpg?v=1784297285"},{"product_id":"asimina-triloba","title":"Asimina triloba","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe pawpaw is a small, tropical-looking deciduous tree with large, drooping leaves and the largest edible fruit native to this country. In mid to late summer the green, mango-shaped fruit softens to a fragrant custard, banana and mango in one, around rows of big dark seeds, relished by people and raccoons alike. The crushed leaves carry a distinctive odor, and the whole tree reads more like the tropics than a temperate woodland.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAsimina triloba\u003c\/em\u003e sends up many root suckers and forms colonies, the natural way of the species, and prefers deep, rich soil and dependable moisture. Pawpaw is self-sterile, so plant more than one, ideally unrelated seedlings, for cross-pollination and a good fruit set. Some nurseries offer named varieties selected for larger or sweeter fruit. Native to the eastern United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive pawpaw a sheltered, fertile spot in sun to part shade, with young trees appreciating some shade and mature ones fruiting best in sun. The tree anchors an edible landscape, a woodland edge, or a naturalized planting, and serves as the sole host of the zebra swallowtail butterfly. The soft gold fall color is a quiet bonus.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057813721203,"sku":"ASIM-TRIL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AsiminatrilobaJimRobbins1.jpg?v=1783096578"},{"product_id":"bejaria-befaria-racemosa","title":"Bejaria (Befaria) racemosa","description":"\u003cp\u003eBejaria racemosa, the tarflower, is one of the odd and lovely surprises of the Florida scrub, a heath-family shrub that looks nothing like the rest of the clan. Where blueberries and azaleas carry small, fused, bell-shaped blooms, tarflower opens wide flowers of seven separate petals, white to soft pink and sweetly fragrant, held in loose summer racemes. The genus honors the eighteenth-century Spanish botanist Jose Bejar, and though older books spell the name Befaria, botanists have since settled on Bejaria.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe common names tarflower and flycatcher come from the plant's strangest habit. The buds, young twigs, and flowers are coated in a sticky, resinous film that catches small insects like flypaper, and whether the shrub draws any nourishment from the trapped visitors or simply fends off nectar thieves is a question botanists still debate. Either way, the large native bees strong enough to work the blooms pass freely, doing the real business of pollination while ants and small flies stay stuck at the door.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTarflower belongs to the fire-shaped scrub and sandy pine flatwoods of Florida and the neighboring Deep South, thriving on lean, acid sand where richer soil and standing water would spell trouble. Like the blueberries and azaleas nearby, the plant depends on sharp drainage and an acid root run, and repays those conditions with fragrant summer flowers and a quietly picturesque, often twisting form. Bees, butterflies, and at least one native moth make use of the plant through the season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeldom offered in the trade and famously particular about transplanting, tarflower is a collector's shrub and a conversation piece for the native, xeric, or pollinator garden. Give Bejaria racemosa full sun to light shade and very sandy, sharply drained, acid soil, and resist the urge to pamper the roots. Sited well, this uncommon Florida native rewards the patient gardener with sticky, seven-petaled, honey-scented flowers found on nothing else in the border.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057817489523,"sku":"BEJA-BEFA-RACE-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Bejaria_Befaria_racemosaAlanCresslar.jpg?v=1784298434"},{"product_id":"cunninghamia-lanceolata-glauca","title":"Cunninghamia lanceolata 'Glauca'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the silvery blue-needled form of the China fir, and the color is the reason to choose it over the ordinary green. Needles are broad, flat, stiff, and sharply pointed, an inch or two long, arranged in spirals that read as flat sprays and holding a distinct glaucous blue that intensifies in good light. The frame is boldly pyramidal with tiered horizontal branching, reaching forty to sixty feet in cultivation here, considerably more in China. Old bark peels in long strips to reveal reddish brown beneath. Dead needles hang on inside the crown for a year or two, which some gardeners dislike and others regard as part of the character; either way, a China fir is never mistaken for anything else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe genus honors James Cunningham, a Scottish surgeon working for the East India Company who collected in Fujian and Zhoushan around the turn of the eighteenth century and became the first Westerner to send this tree home, in 1702. \u003cem\u003eLanceolata\u003c\/em\u003e describes the needle. In China the tree is \u003cem\u003eshan mu\u003c\/em\u003e, and calling it merely important would be an understatement: China fir is among the country's principal timber species, grown in vast plantations on rotations of twenty to thirty years. The wood is soft, light, strongly scented, remarkably resistant to rot, and untouched by termites, which made it the traditional choice for coffins and for temple construction, where the fragrance was valued as much as the durability. Boats, bridges, furniture, and lamp posts all took the same timber.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlongside the timber tradition sits a smaller medicinal one. Decoctions of the cones were used for coughs, and ash from the burnt bark was applied to wounds and burns. The essential oil distilled from the branches has long gone into perfumery, and modern analysis has found it dominated by cedrol, which laboratory work has shown to be a potent antifungal, outperforming a standard reference compound in trials against a serious tree pathogen. The scent that made the wood desirable for a temple turns out to be doing real chemical work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive full sun to light shade, deep moist well-drained soil, and shelter from cold drying wind, which browns the foliage faster than low temperatures do. Growth is steady rather than rushed and the tree wants room; this is a specimen for a lawn, a park, a large garden, or an arboretum, not a foundation plant. One genuinely unusual trait for a conifer: China fir coppices, resprouting readily from a cut stump or from the base, so a storm-damaged or badly sited tree can be cut down and started again, and multi-stemmed specimens arise naturally. Worth knowing that 'Glauca' is a color form rather than a sharply defined clone, and blue-tinged individuals turn up in wild populations, so expect some variation in intensity between plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of the American Conifer Society\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057854648435,"sku":"CUNN-LANC-GLAU-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Cunninghamialanceolata_Glauca_1.jpg?v=1787164390"},{"product_id":"cunninghamia-lanceolata","title":"Cunninghamia lanceolata","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA towering heirloom of Southern gardens, with exotic grace, cathedral form, and a whisper of mountain fog from the forests of old China.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCunninghamia lanceolata\u003c\/em\u003e, the Chinafir, is a bold, pyramidal evergreen, long a curiosity and treasure of the Southern landscape and one of the oldest Asian conifers brought into American cultivation. Native to the misty mountain slopes of China, this stately tree has for generations lent a soft, needled silhouette and an ancient bearing to cemeteries, farmyards, and forgotten estate borders across the South.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe long, flattened needles, arranged in a more or less two-dimensional plane, give the branches a feathered, almost fern-like quality, a far cry from the rigid geometry of many conifers. The foliage is often a rich blue-green, and when backlit by winter sun the whole tree glows with a quiet, silken sheen. The Chinafir is frequently multi-trunked, and with age the trunks develop a deeply furrowed, reddish-brown bark that peels in elegant strips. Small, rounded cones form along the branches, offering visual interest without clutter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOften mistaken by the casual observer for the exotic monkey puzzle tree (\u003cem\u003eAraucaria araucana\u003c\/em\u003e), \u003cem\u003eCunninghamia\u003c\/em\u003e is altogether softer, more forgiving, and better suited to Southern soils and climate. The tree thrives in moist, acidic, well-drained soil, appreciates a bit of space to spread and breathe, and welcomes the occasional grooming to remove deadwood and open the elegant form to air.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057854746739,"sku":"CUNN-LANC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-58.jpg?v=1720137780"},{"product_id":"daphniphyllum-calycinum","title":"Daphniphyllum calycinum","description":"\u003cp\u003eDaphniphyllum calycinum is a bold evergreen shrub that looks, at a glance, like a rhododendron, though the two are unrelated. Handsome, leathery, oval leaves cluster toward the branch tips, deep green above and glaucous, almost bluish-white beneath, giving the plant an exotic, architectural presence in the shade garden. Grown almost entirely for that striking foliage, this is a shrub for the collector rather than the crowd, and one virtually unknown in North American gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant belongs to the Daphniphyllaceae, a small family with a single genus, and the name Daphniphyllum simply means Daphne-leaf, for foliage that recalls the laurels. Like the rest of the genus, this species is dioecious, carrying male and female flowers on separate plants, so a pair is needed for the small, glaucous, blue-black fruits to follow. The flowers themselves are quiet, greenish and without petals, opening in spring; the leaves are the whole point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the hills and forest margins of southern China and northern Vietnam, Daphniphyllum calycinum is a genuine rarity in Western horticulture, offered by only a handful of specialist nurseries and seldom seen on this side of the world. That scarcity, together with the bold, glaucous-backed foliage, is exactly the draw for the collector. Reddish leaf-stalks and new growth add a further quiet flourish to the evergreen frame.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow Daphniphyllum calycinum much as a rhododendron, in part to full shade and moist, well-drained, humus-rich, acidic soil, sheltered from harsh sun and wind. Slow-growing and evergreen, the shrub makes a bold-textured anchor for a woodland or shade planting where something out of the ordinary is wanted. The plant contains alkaloids and should be regarded as toxic if eaten, a point worth noting though the foliage is the reason to grow it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057858842739,"sku":"DAPH-CALY-01G","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DaphniphyllumcalycinumKewPOWO.jpg?v=1784304499"},{"product_id":"daphniphyllum-humile","title":"Daphniphyllum humile","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA quiet aristocrat of the evergreen garden, with roots in the misty woodlands of Japan.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn an age when flamboyance so often overtakes quietude in the garden, \u003cem\u003eDaphniphyllum humile\u003c\/em\u003e stands as a gentle reminder of grace, restraint, and presence without spectacle. With broad, lustrous leaves that catch the morning light like polished green pewter, this evergreen shrub offers the stature and poise of a Rhododendron, but without the fuss or floral fanfare.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the shaded, moist forests of Japan, this refined understory plant brings an old-world calm to woodland gardens and dappled borders. The leathery foliage, deep green and architectural, stays evergreen year round, forming a rounded, symmetrical mound that holds the quiet corners of the landscape. Though the flowers are inconspicuous, the structural beauty more than compensates, especially where subtlety is prized.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGardeners who know \u003cem\u003eDaphniphyllum macropodum\u003c\/em\u003e will find in \u003cem\u003eD. humile\u003c\/em\u003e a more modest cousin, a scaled-down version for the smaller garden or the intimate planting scheme. Introduced to American horticulture by none other than Woodlanders, this plant crossed the Atlantic from England's esteemed Hillier Nursery, and has since found favor among collectors and connoisseurs alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a plant for poets and naturalists, those who walk their gardens not for show but for solace. Planted in moist, semi-shady soil, Daphniphyllum humile rewards patience with year-round presence, unbothered by heat or mild winter chill, and steadfast in quiet beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Japan. Foliage: large, leathery, evergreen, Rhododendron-like in form. Size: typically three to six feet tall and wide. Notable traits: architectural foliage, shade-loving, rare in cultivation. Garden use: woodland gardens, shade borders, and collector's plantings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of John Grimshaw and John Anderson.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057858875507,"sku":"DAPH-HUMI-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/daphniphyllum-humile-woodlanders1.jpg?v=1750865436"},{"product_id":"dendropanax-trifidus","title":"Dendropanax trifidus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDendropanax trifidus\u003c\/em\u003e is one of those quiet, aristocratic evergreens that rewards a second look and then a third. To the casual eye the plant reads as a glossy, tropical-looking small tree, something you would expect to sulk at the first frost; in truth this is a tough, warm-temperate native of the coastal forests of southern Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, hardy well into the Southeast and unbothered by heat, humidity, or a mild winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus name tells part of the story. \u003cem\u003eDendropanax\u003c\/em\u003e joins the Greek for tree, dendron, to panax, the same root behind ginseng and the old idea of a cure-all, so the botanical name reads almost as tree ginseng. The kinship is real, because this is a member of the Araliaceae, the ivy and ginseng family, cousin to English ivy, to \u003cem\u003eFatsia\u003c\/em\u003e, to \u003cem\u003eAralia\u003c\/em\u003e, and to ginseng itself, and the rounded summer umbels of small yellow-green flowers, followed by clusters of black autumn drupes, echo that family resemblance exactly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Japanese common name is the poetry, though. Gardeners there call this tree kakuremino, the cloak of invisibility, after a magical straw cape from folklore that hid whoever wore it. The name was borrowed for the plant because the deeply cut, three-lobed juvenile leaves resemble that mythical mino, the woven rain cloak, and it also happens to describe how the tree behaves in a planting, slipping quietly into the green background until the light catches the lacquered leaves. The species name, \u003cem\u003etrifidus\u003c\/em\u003e, meaning split into three, records the same lobed juvenile foliage, which is only half the trick: as the tree matures the leaves gradually give up their lobes and settle into simple, entire ovals, so a single specimen in transition often carries both leaf forms at once, a botanical curiosity called heteroblasty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHere in the United States the plant is still barely known. This particular tree grew in our own garden in Aiken, South Carolina for years, and \u003cem\u003eDendropanax trifidus\u003c\/em\u003e was very possibly first offered to American gardeners by Woodlanders. Use the dense, upright form as a rare evergreen for shade: a woodland understory, a shaded courtyard, or a narrow green screen in a tight side yard, where the glossy foliage lends a tropical calm that belies real hardiness. Pair with fatsia, aucuba, ferns, and hellebores, give shade to semi-shade and moist, well-drained soil, and shelter the plant from harsh winter wind. In cold snaps the leaves flush burgundy and copper, then return to deep green with spring.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057859367027,"sku":"DEND-TRIF-01G","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DendropanaxtrifidusJimRobbinsWoodlanders_b8716350-ef1b-491e-b915-2973eb7eeb54.jpg?v=1777492079"},{"product_id":"dichroa-febrifuga","title":"Dichroa febrifuga","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew garden shrubs carry a resume like \u003cem\u003eDichroa febrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e. In the ground this is a handsome, medium evergreen with lacecap heads of small blue flowers in late spring and, better still, clusters of berries in fall that ripen to an almost unreal iridescent, metallic blue, the kind of structural color usually reserved for beetles and tropical birds. A relatively recent introduction from China, the plant sits close enough to \u003cem\u003eHydrangea\u003c\/em\u003e, in the family Hydrangeaceae, that the same trick applies: acidic soil deepens the flowers and fruit to true blue, while alkaline ground pushes them toward pink.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth halves of the botanical name reward a moment of attention. \u003cem\u003eDichroa\u003c\/em\u003e comes from the Greek for two-colored, a nod to those shifting blues and pinks, while the epithet \u003cem\u003efebrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e is plain Latin for fever-dispelling, and that second word opens onto two thousand years of history. In China the plant is chang shan, named for Mount Chang, and ranks among the fifty fundamental herbs of traditional medicine. The roots appear in the Shennong Bencao Jing, the oldest surviving Chinese materia medica, and again in Zhang Zhongjing's Han-dynasty Treatise on Cold Damage, prescribed above all against the recurring fevers of malaria.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe modern chapter is just as remarkable. In the twentieth century, chemists chasing the herb's power isolated the alkaloids febrifugine and isofebrifugine, and those molecules in turn inspired a synthetic derivative, halofuginone, that has since traveled far from the fever clinic, serving as an anticoccidial in poultry feed and as a research compound studied for fibrosis, cancer, and autoimmune disease. The tradition came with a hard catch that modern study confirmed, since chang shan is strongly emetic and toxic to the liver in more than small amounts, which is exactly why the plant belongs in the garden as an ornamental while the pharmacology belongs in the laboratory. Nothing here is medical advice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet against that heritage, the garden role is refreshingly simple. Grow \u003cem\u003eDichroa febrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e as a lush, shade-loving shrub for a woodland border, a shaded courtyard, or a mixed planting where the metallic fall berries can be admired at close range, and keep the soil acidic for the deepest blue. The plant is handsome with hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, and aucuba, takes happily to a large container that can shelter under cover at the cold edge of the range, and asks only for moist, well-drained soil in morning sun or dappled shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.botanic.cam.ac.uk\/the-garden\/plant-list\/dichroa-febrifuga\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eCambridge Botanic Garden\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860120691,"sku":"DICH-FEBR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Dichroa-febrifuga-19980761-A-2-scaled.jpg?v=1722789808"},{"product_id":"dichroa-versicolor","title":"Dichroa versicolor","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe genus name comes from the Greek \u003cem\u003edichroos\u003c\/em\u003e, meaning \"two-colored,\" and \u003cem\u003eDichroa versicolor\u003c\/em\u003e presses the idea further: bloom color shifts with soil chemistry much the way a hydrangea does, swinging from deep cobalt to soft mauve depending on how much aluminum a plant can draw up. The species epithet \u003cem\u003eversicolor\u003c\/em\u003e only doubles down on the point, promising a shrub that refuses to settle on a single shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBotanically this is the close cousin of the more familiar \u003cem\u003eDichroa febrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e, but built on a grander scale, with leaves three to four times larger and lacecap-like corymbs that can stretch nearly a foot across. Think of the plant as an evergreen hydrangea analog for the gardener who has run out of shade-garden ideas: glossy, deep green leaves the size of a hand, held on dark stems that read almost lacquered in winter light. The species climbs the high, cool mountains of Taiwan, which is part of why these shrubs hold up better in southeastern gardens than a tropical reputation might suggest. Woodlanders' stock traces to a seed exchange between Scott McMahan at the Atlanta Botanical Garden and a high-elevation Taiwanese collection, a provenance that shows in the surprising cold tolerance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus carries a heavier cultural weight through that famous cousin: \u003cem\u003eDichroa febrifuga\u003c\/em\u003e is the Chinese quinine of traditional medicine, one of the classic fever herbs of the old pharmacopoeia. \u003cem\u003eDichroa versicolor\u003c\/em\u003e is grown instead for pure ornament, and in Hong Kong and parts of southern China the shrub has long done double duty as a garden plant and an informal hedge. We have found the same to be true here, whether the shrub is looped along a shaded path or settled in beside taller camellias where the arching stems can borrow a little structure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, give \u003cem\u003eDichroa versicolor\u003c\/em\u003e a spot in morning sun or dappled shade where the outsized blooms and, in a good year, the iridescent metallic berries can be read at close range. Acidic, aluminum-rich soil deepens the blue of both flower and fruit, while sweeter ground pushes the same plant toward lavender and pink. Pair the shrub with hydrangeas, ferns, hostas, and aucuba for a lush, shade-loving grouping, and plant a second clone nearby to coax the fullest set of those turquoise-to-near-black berries. A plant for the collector who already owns the hydrangeas and is ready for something quieter and stranger.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057860218995,"sku":"DICH-VERS-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DichroaversicolorAucklandBG.jpg?v=1777489221"},{"product_id":"exbucklandia-populnea","title":"Exbucklandia populnea","description":"\u003cp\u003eExbucklandia populnea is a rare evergreen tree that fools nearly everyone who meets it. The large, glossy, leathery leaves, sometimes shallowly three-lobed and carried on long stalks, look for all the world like those of a tulip poplar, yet the tree belongs to the witch-hazel family, a kinship few would ever guess. Bold and architectural, with bronze-red new growth and curious upright stipules capping each shoot, this is a foliage tree of real presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are a modest affair, small and reddish, gathered in little rounded heads and easy to overlook; the foliage is the whole show. Broad, deep green, and evergreen, the leaves flutter in the wind like an aspen's and flush bronze in cool weather, giving the tree a lush, almost tropical look uncommon in a hardy evergreen. In the mountains of southern China and the eastern Himalayas where the tree grows wild, the wood is valued for timber, but in the garden the draw is purely ornamental.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the montane forests of southern China, the Himalayas, and mainland Southeast Asia, Exbucklandia is virtually unknown in Western gardens, a genuine collector's tree and one Woodlanders was among the first to offer in the United States. Serious plantspeople have sought the tree for years, drawn by the bold foliage and the botanical curiosity of a witch-hazel relative that looks like a poplar. Slow and evergreen, the tree makes a striking, uncommon addition to a mild-climate garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow Exbucklandia populnea in part shade to sun in moist, fertile, well-drained, acid soil, sheltered while young, in a climate no colder than about zone 7b. Give room, since the tree grows large in time, and site where the bold, poplar-like evergreen leaves can be appreciated as the centerpiece they deserve to be. For the collector who wants something almost no one else can grow, few trees are as quietly astonishing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057869394035,"sku":"E-BUCK-POPU-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ExbucklandiapopulneaJackAldridge.jpg?v=1784307150"},{"product_id":"franklinia-alatamaha","title":"Franklinia altamaha","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew plants carry a story like the Franklin tree. Collected from the banks of the Altamaha River in Georgia by John and William Bartram in the 1760s and named by them for their friend Benjamin Franklin, Franklinia alatamaha was last seen growing wild around 1803 and has never been found in nature since. Every Franklinia alive today, in every garden and arboretum on earth, descends from the seed the Bartrams carried home to Philadelphia. To grow one is to hold a living piece of that lineage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tree earns a place on its own merits, history aside. In late summer and into fall, white, camellia-like flowers with a central boss of golden stamens open in succession, sweetly fragrant and three inches across, often while the foliage is already turning a deep, burnished crimson. Flower and fire together is a generosity few plants manage, and the show arrives in a season when most trees have long finished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFranklinia belongs to the tea family, Theaceae, kin to the camellias and stewartias, and shares their taste for cool, acid, perfectly drained ground. The tree can be temperamental, resenting wet feet, heavy clay, and soil where cotton or other crops have left root-rot pathogens behind, so give a raised, humus-rich, freely draining bed, a little afternoon shade in the hottest climates, and the patience to let a slow plant settle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe have grown Franklinia at Woodlanders for decades, and the growing never stops feeling like a privilege. Site the tree as a specimen where the late flowers and crimson fall color can be admired at close range, near a path, a patio, or a window framed for autumn, and pair with other acid-lovers such as camellias, azaleas, and stewartias. A rare and storied small tree for the collector willing to give it the drainage it demands.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057872506995,"sku":"FRAN-ALAT-01G","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/FrankliniaalatamahaWoodlanders1MTAuburn.jpg?v=1750870105"},{"product_id":"glyptostrobus-pensilis-lineatus","title":"Glyptostrobus pensilis (lineatus)","description":"\u003cp\u003eGlyptostrobus pensilis, the Chinese swamp cypress, is a living fossil and one of the rarest conifers on earth, the last surviving species of an ancient lineage that once ringed the Northern Hemisphere. A deciduous conifer of the cypress family, the swamp cypress is a near-twin of the American baldcypress, sharing the same feathery, soft green foliage, the same love of standing water, and even the same habit of throwing up woody knees from the roots in wet ground. In autumn the foliage turns a warm bronze-red before falling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story of this tree is a sobering one. Once widespread across southern China, the Chinese swamp cypress has been all but erased from the wild, drained, logged, and flooded out of existence, and survives today mainly because Chinese farmers have planted it for centuries along paddy banks and rivers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species as Critically Endangered, with only a few hundred truly wild trees left, most of them now in Vietnam and Laos. To grow one is to take part, in a small way, in keeping a living fossil alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor all the rarity, the swamp cypress is a fine and adaptable garden tree wherever the ground stays wet. Plant the tree at a pond edge, along a stream, in a boggy low spot, or anywhere baldcypress would thrive, in full sun and moist to saturated soil, and expect a narrow, conical tree of soft green in summer and bronze in fall. Standing water is no obstacle, and ordinary moist garden soil suits the tree as well, so long as the ground never dries out badly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRarely offered in the United States, Glyptostrobus pensilis is a collector's conifer and a conservation plant in one, a conversation piece with a genuine story behind it. Give room for a medium to large tree in time, a wet or moist site, and full sun, and the reward is a graceful, feathery specimen almost no one else can grow. For the gardener with a damp corner and a taste for the rare, few trees carry so much meaning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAdditional photos courtesy of CJ Earle and Glyn Church\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057875685491,"sku":"GLYP-PENS-LINE-01G","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/GlyptostrobuspensilisCJEarle.jpg?v=1784309299"},{"product_id":"kadsura-japonica-fukurin","title":"Kadsura japonica \"Fukurin\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eKadsura japonica, the Japanese kadsura, is an evergreen twining vine of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, a close relative of the medicinal magnolia-vine Schisandra, native to the woodlands of Japan, Korea, and southern China. 'Fukurin' is the variegated form, glossy dark green leaves edged in a clean cream-yellow margin that lights up a shaded wall or fence and holds through the year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond the foliage, the vine offers small, fragrant, creamy-white flowers tucked into the leaf axils in the warm months, and, on female plants with a male nearby, showy red fruit in rounded, grape-like clusters in fall. Evergreen and moderate in vigor, kadsura twines gracefully rather than smothering, well-mannered on a trellis or fence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKadsura wants what a woodland edge provides: moist, rich, well-drained soil and partial shade, sheltered from harsh sun and drying wind. Given a support to climb, the vine is easy and untroubled, evergreen through mild winters and taking brief frost, with foliage that may flush slightly red in cold. In hard-winter areas give a protected spot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse 'Fukurin' to brighten a shaded fence, trellis, arbor, or woodland-garden structure, where the variegated evergreen leaves lift a dim corner and the fall fruit, when it comes, adds a bright note. Pair with ferns, hydrangeas, and other shade companions, and site where the fragrant summer flowers can be met at close range. A collector's evergreen vine for the shade.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057905012851,"sku":"KADS-JAPO-FUKU-01G","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-834.jpg?v=1720139169"},{"product_id":"kadsura-longipedunculata","title":"Kadsura longipedunculata","description":"\u003cp\u003eKadsura longipedunculata is an evergreen twining vine of the star-anise family, Schisandraceae, native to the moist forests and shaded stream banks of southern and southwestern China. The leaves are narrow, glossy, dark green, and lightly toothed, carried on stems that climb without menace. The genus name comes from kazura, a Japanese word for a twining vine, and the species epithet means long-peduncled, for the slender stalks that let each flower hang clear of the foliage. Chinese gardeners and herbalists know the plant as nan wu wei zi, the southern five-flavor fruit, a nod to the close cousin Schisandra, whose berries are said to carry all five tastes at once. The French botanists Achille Finet and François Gagnepain gave the vine a formal name in 1905.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe obtained this species from Nanjing Botanic Garden in China, and so far as we can tell Woodlanders was the first nursery to offer the plant in this country. Very little of the species has ever made the trip west. What has arrived proves neat, clean, and vigorous in cultivation, hardy through USDA zones 7 to 10, and altogether easier to grow than the rarity would suggest. Your neighbor will likely not have this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flower story here is one of the odder ones in botany. Unlike most of the genus, which keeps male and female plants separate, Kadsura longipedunculata is monoecious, carrying both kinds of flower on the same vine, so a single plant can set fruit alone. The blooms open at night from midsummer into early autumn, cream to pale yellow with some forms flushed red, warming themselves several degrees above the surrounding air and releasing a fruity scent dominated by methyl butyrate across a four or five hour window. The whole performance is aimed at one insect: a female gall midge of the genus Megommata, who arrives to eat pollen. The female flowers offer the same warmth and the same perfume and no reward whatsoever, a small deceit that gets them pollinated all the same. Fruit follows in fall as a rounded scarlet cluster of fleshy carpels, closer to a raspberry than to anything in the grape family, edible raw or cooked and fragrant enough that the oil has been pressed for perfume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn China the roots and root bark are a long-standing article of the herbal trade, sold as hong mu xiang and zi jin pi, prepared as decoctions and wine infusions to move blood and ease the pain of rheumatism, traumatic injury, and gastric complaint, with the leaves turned to canker sores and menstrual trouble. Modern laboratories have taken an interest as well. Something over three hundred compounds have been catalogued from the plant, chiefly dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans of the kadsulignan and anwulignan sort along with schiartane triterpenoids, and early work has looked at hepatoprotective and sedative activity. All of that is best read as tradition and preliminary research, not as a prescription.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat this kadsura as a woodland-edge plant: rich, moist, well-drained soil, part shade, shelter from harsh afternoon sun and drying wind, and something to twine on. A fence, an arbor, a post at the corner of a shade border, or an old tree will all serve. The vine climbs to roughly eight or ten feet, sometimes twelve, twines rather than smothers, and holds glossy foliage through the winter across most of the range. Ferns, hydrangeas, aucuba, and Danae make good company below. Site the plant near a door or a path if you can, since the flowers do their work after dark and the scent is best met on a summer evening.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057905111155,"sku":"KADS-LONG-01G","price":48.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Kadsuralongipedunculata1.jpg?v=1787141649"},{"product_id":"keteleeria-davidiana","title":"Keteleeria davidiana","description":"\u003cp\u003eA refined and rarely encountered evergreen conifer from the mountains of southeastern China and Taiwan, Keteleeria davidiana is a tree of quiet distinction. Introduced to Western gardens in the nineteenth century, the species has stayed largely within botanical gardens and specialist collections, seldom offered in the nursery trade and still little known outside conifer circles. The genus name honors J. B. Keteleer, a French nurseryman of the era, while the epithet davidiana remembers Armand David, the missionary-naturalist who botanized widely in China.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOften called fir-like, Keteleeria is a close cousin of the true firs (Abies) but forms a small, ancient genus separate from them. Young trees make a stately, symmetrical pyramid, broadening into a dignified, open-crowned specimen with age. The glossy, deep green needles are arranged in flattened sprays along the branches for a texture at once soft and architectural, and the erect, cylindrical, light brown cones, reminiscent of fir cones and often quite large, ripen and then break apart on the branch rather than falling whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild, Keteleeria davidiana favors mountainous ground with warm summers and comparatively mild winters, conditions that closely mirror much of the American Southeast and hint at why the tree suits Southern gardens better than most exotic conifers. The Woodlanders plants are seed-grown from trees once cultivated at the University of Georgia's experimental facility in Tifton, Georgia, an important site for testing plants under hot summers and mild winters. Though that collection has since been lost, these seedlings carry that regional trial work forward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the landscape, give this conifer full sun, reliably well-drained soil, and room to develop the natural form, which reaches roughly forty to sixty feet over time. The species performs best where winters are not extreme and drainage is dependable. For the collector, the conifer enthusiast, or the designer reaching beyond the ordinary palette, Keteleeria davidiana offers real rarity, botanical interest, and a strong yet elegant evergreen presence that anchors a large garden through every season.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057906520179,"sku":"KETE-DAVI-01G","price":62.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Keteleeria_davidiana_DimvokWKaoxJ.jpg?v=1771615773"},{"product_id":"lithocarpus-henryi","title":"Lithocarpus henryi","description":"\u003cp\u003eLithocarpus henryi, the Henry tanoak, is an evergreen cousin of the oaks that few gardeners have met. Native to the mountain forests of central China, the tree carries long, narrow, pointed leaves of glossy deep green and builds, in time, a dense, rounded evergreen crown of fifteen to twenty-five feet. Among a genus of mostly tender species, this one ranks as the hardiest, which is what makes the Henry tanoak worth seeking out for milder temperate gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tanoaks belong to the beech and oak family, Fagaceae, and sit close to the true oaks without being of them. The genus name Lithocarpus means stone fruit, from the Greek for stone and fruit, a nod to the large, hard, woody acorns; unlike the nodding catkins of an oak, the flowers stand upright in stiff, chestnut-like spikes. The epithet henryi honors Augustine Henry, the Irish-born plant collector whose late nineteenth-century explorations opened much of the flora of central China to Western gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn summer the tree hangs out creamy, upright catkins with the heavy scent of the chestnuts to which the family is kin, followed by large, hard acorns held in sparse racemes and cupped in woody scales. The new growth flushes handsomely before hardening to deep green, and the leathery leaves keep their polish through winter, giving the tree a substantial, year-round presence that few broadleaf evergreens of this hardiness can match.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive the Henry tanoak a sunny to lightly shaded position and fertile, well-drained soil, and allow room for the crown to fill out as a specimen, an evergreen screen, or a distinctive shade tree for a collector's garden. Patience helps, since tanoaks settle in at a measured pace, but the reward is a rare and dignified evergreen that lends structure and quiet interest in every season. The acorns, in time, feed birds and small mammals, a bonus for a wildlife-minded garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057912778867,"sku":"LITH-HENR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"lithocarpus-edulis-variegata","title":"Lithocarpus edulis 'Variegata'","description":"\u003cp\u003eA broadleaf evergreen with a story, this variegated tanbark oak came into the country from Japan through the late Dr. Fred Meyer of the United States National Arboretum, a botanist and tireless plant explorer, and was almost certainly first offered to American gardeners by Woodlanders. The draw is the foliage: dense, leathery, glossy leaves, each dark green blade split by an irregular central streak of gold and cream, so that a whole tree seems lit from within. Plant Delights later distributed the same selection under the name 'Starburst,' and both names point to this one bright-leaved plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLithocarpus is the genus of stone oaks, or tanbark oaks, close kin to the true oaks in Fagaceae but set apart by stiff, upright flower spikes rather than the dangling catkins of Quercus, and by acorns so hard-shelled they gave the genus its name, from the Greek for stone fruit. The species epithet, edulis, means edible, and records a genuine use: in Japan the acorns of this tree, mateba-shii, have long been gathered for food, roasted and ground after leaching away the tannins that make so many acorns bitter. The bark, like that of the other tanbark oaks, once fed the leather-tanning trade with its tannins.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeft to grow, Lithocarpus edulis makes a rounded evergreen tree of twenty-five to thirty-five feet, slow and deliberate in youth and dense with age, bearing creamy upright flower spikes in early summer and, in autumn, the hard little acorns. The variegated form is grown for leaf rather than crop, but a mature specimen still flowers and fruits. Hardy through USDA zones 7 to 9 and tolerant of coastal wind and city air, the tree serves as a luminous evergreen screen, a specimen to light a shaded corner, or a slow-building anchor where a gardener wants substance that holds all winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is an old-fashioned generosity to a tree like this, an evergreen that feeds wildlife, once fed people, and carries a variegation striking enough to stop a visitor mid-path. Give the tanbark oak deep, well-drained soil and an open spot with room to spread, full sun to part shade, and a little shelter while young. Growers report that deer leave the foliage alone, one more argument for a plant that asks little and offers a great deal, including a direct link to the exploring botanists who once carried such things home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057913008243,"sku":"LITH-EDUL-VARI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Lithocarpusedulis_Variegata.jpg?v=1784327238"},{"product_id":"lomatia-myricoides","title":"Lomatia myricoides","description":"\u003cp\u003eLomatia myricoides is an Australian rarity that has quietly proven itself in the American Southeast, and that combination is the whole appeal. A member of the Proteaceae, the great Southern Hemisphere family of banksias, grevilleas, and the waratah, this evergreen shrub spreads wide and low, clothed in long, narrow, sharply toothed leaves, and carries sprays of creamy-white, spidery flowers in the heat of midsummer, sweetly fragrant at close range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the wild the plant lines mountain watercourses through New South Wales and eastern Victoria, which earns the honest common name of river lomatia; the label crinklebush, sometimes hung on this species, actually belongs to a cousin, Lomatia silaifolia. The genus name comes from the Greek loma, a fringe or border, for the winged margin of the seed, and the epithet myricoides notes leaves that recall a Myrica, the bayberry. Coming from Australian mountains above three thousand feet, this is one of the hardiest and most adaptable of the proteas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere most of the family demand perfect drainage and sulk at the first whiff of phosphorus, river lomatia is comparatively easygoing, a riverbank plant that accepts ordinary garden soil and regular water better than most of the family. Woodlanders has grown the shrub with real satisfaction here in Aiken, South Carolina, and may well have been among the first to offer the species in the United States outside California, where Australian plants have long been landscape staples. As with any protea, go easy on fertilizer and give the roots sharp drainage, and the plant rewards the gamble.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet river lomatia where the arching, fine-textured habit can spread, in full sun to part shade, as an evergreen anchor, an informal screen, or a source of long-lasting cut foliage and flowers. The summer bloom is subtle rather than shouting, a haze of fragrant cream against dark leaves, and the shrub is reportedly untroubled by deer. For the collector who wants a conversation piece that actually performs, this cold-hardy Australian is a quietly rewarding choice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057913958515,"sku":"LOMA-MYRI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/LomatiamyricoidesBenWalcott.jpg?v=1784330508"},{"product_id":"luma-apiculata","title":"Luma apiculata","description":"\u003cp\u003eLuma apiculata, the Chilean myrtle, is grown above all for the extraordinary bark: smooth, sinuous trunks in warm cinnamon-orange that peel to reveal cream beneath, a living sculpture that glows in low winter light. An evergreen of the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, the plant hails from the temperate rainforests of Chile and neighboring Argentina, where whole groves, most famously the Bosque de Arrayanes on Lake Nahuel Huapi, are built of these twisting, apricot-barked trunks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery part is aromatic. The small, pointed, glossy dark green leaves release a sweet, spicy scent when crushed, and the epithet apiculata notes the little pointed tip on each leaf. In summer the branches fill with small, waxy, four-petaled white flowers, sweetly fragrant and heavy with nectar, so valued in South America that the myrtle is an important honey plant. Purple-black berries follow, edible and pleasantly sweet, eaten fresh in Chile and cooked into sauces and jams, and much loved by birds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the tree's homeland the plant carries the Mapuche name luma and the Spanish arrayan, and the dense, heavy wood has long been prized for tool handles and turnery. Slow and shrubby when young, the Chilean myrtle builds with age into a large multi-stemmed shrub or small tree of twenty feet and more, and the bark only improves over the years. The plant takes kindly to hard pruning and is a favorite subject for bonsai, where the cinnamon bark can be admired in miniature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLong a signature plant of California gardens, the Chilean myrtle also does well in the milder Southeast, asking only for full sun to part shade and moist, well-drained soil. Give the plant a spot where the bark can be seen and touched, near a path, a patio, or a low wall, and limb up the lower branches with age to reveal the trunks. Evergreen, aromatic, and quietly beautiful in every season, Luma apiculata rewards a gardener willing to grow something a little out of the ordinary.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057916055667,"sku":"LUMA-APIC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1381.jpg?v=1720139437"},{"product_id":"manettia-cordifolia-glabra","title":"Manettia cordifolia (glabra)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe firecracker vine earns the name in high summer, when a delicate twining stem lights up with a long, generous run of small, scarlet, tubular flowers. Manettia cordifolia is the true red-flowered species, all crimson with no yellow tip, quieter in vigor than the candy-corn firecracker vines of the houseplant trade, and the better-mannered for that, climbing just enough to be useful without ever becoming a thug.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA South American native, ranging from Brazil and Argentina through Paraguay and beyond, this member of the coffee family, Rubiaceae, honors Saverio Manetti, the eighteenth-century Italian physician who ran the botanic garden in Florence. The epithet cordifolia means heart-leaved, though the foliage on garden plants often reads narrower than that suggests, and the older name Manettia glabra, sometimes seen in parentheses, is simply a synonym for the same species. Woodlanders has grown this vine for a long while: the original start came from Edmund Cuthbert of Summerville, South Carolina, before 1980, and the line has been kept going ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRed and tubular, the flowers are built for hummingbirds, and they find the vine reliably through the warm months. Give Manettia cordifolia a sunny spot with moist but well-drained soil and a fence, trellis, or arbor to twine through, and the plant flowers for months on end. In the colder part of the range the vine dies back to the root with frost and returns in spring; farther north, grow the plant in a container that can shelter indoors over winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all the fireworks in the name, this is a refined and restrained vine, ideal where a heavier tropical climber would swamp a small support: a mailbox post, an obelisk in a border, a patio container with a small tuteur, or a light trellis by a door where the hummingbirds can be watched at work. Grow this one for the long scarlet summer, for the hummingbirds that come to the flowers, and for a quiet piece of South Carolina garden history handed down from Edmund Cuthbert.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057922543731,"sku":"MANE-CORD-GLAB-01G","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Manettiacordifolia_glabra_1.png?v=1784331086"},{"product_id":"phoebe-chekiangensis","title":"Phoebe chekiangensis","description":"\u003cp\u003ePhoebe chekiangensis is one of a group of Chinese evergreens that could give the American South a whole new kind of shade tree. Upright and clean-limbed, the tree carries dense, leathery, dark green leaves much like those of the related redbay, glossy and handsome the year round, and grows at a steady pace into a small to medium tree of real presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant belongs to Lauraceae, the laurel family, close kin to Persea, the avocado and the native redbays, and to the storied nanmu trees of China. Nanmu is among the most prized timbers in the world, fine-grained, aromatic, and durable, so valued in imperial China that whole logs went into the pillars of the Forbidden City; Phoebe chekiangensis is one of the genuine nanmu species, though the legendary golden-silk grade belongs to a few relatives. The epithet chekiangensis marks the tree's home in Zhejiang province, on the old spelling, in southeastern China.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the wild the species is genuinely rare, listed as vulnerable and protected in China as a second-class species, the wild stands thinned by cutting and slow to regenerate, so growing a nursery tree is a small act of conservation as much as a garden choice. Woodlanders has watched the tree closely: one grew into a beautiful young specimen in a city park here in Aiken, South Carolina, before an ice storm brought the young tree down, a fair reminder that a broadleaf evergreen loaded with ice asks for a sheltered spot at the cold edge of the range. A second specimen grows intertwined with a magnolia at Hopeland Gardens, a verdant love story of some 40 odd years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive Phoebe chekiangensis sun to light shade and good, well-drained but moisture-retentive soil, ideally with some shelter from hard, drying winter wind, and expect an evergreen of USDA zones 8 and 9. The flowers are small and quiet and the little dark fruits sit on reddish cups, but the reason to grow the tree is the foliage and the form, a lustrous evergreen anchor for a Southern garden, at home among camellias and ferns. For the collector of rare woody plants, this is a chance to grow a piece of Chinese forest history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057939583091,"sku":"PHOE-CHEK-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/40CCD01B-D645-4DFC-9723-4D8498EC2885.jpg?v=1784334418"},{"product_id":"pterostyrax-hispida","title":"Pterostyrax hispidus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe fragrant epaulette tree is a deciduous tree of twenty to thirty feet in most gardens, spreading and open in habit, and the performance comes in late spring and early summer when long panicles of small white flowers hang from the ends of the branches and scent the air around the tree. Dirr's \u003cem\u003eManual of Woody Landscape Plants\u003c\/em\u003e puts the case plainly: \"the flowers are extremely handsome and develop when a limited number of plants are offering color.\" That timing is much of the value. By June most of the flowering trees have finished and the garden has gone green, and this one is only starting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second of the two epaulette trees we grow, and the pair make an instructive comparison. Both hang their flowers in fringed drooping panicles, which is where the common name comes from, the resemblance being to the fringed shoulder boards of a dress uniform. Where the little epaulette tree, \u003cem\u003ePterostyrax corymbosus\u003c\/em\u003e, is smaller in every dimension, this species is the larger and heavier-flowered of the two, with panicles that can run to nine inches. The genus name comes from the Greek \u003cem\u003epteron\u003c\/em\u003e, a wing, and \u003cem\u003estyrax\u003c\/em\u003e, for the related storax, and the wing refers to the fruit; the epithet \u003cem\u003ehispidus\u003c\/em\u003e means bristly, for the small ribbed fruits that follow the flowers covered in stiff hairs. So the two species are named for two different features of the same curious little fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA correction to our own older listing, since we would rather fix a thing than repeat it: this species is native to both China and Japan rather than to Japan alone. \u003cem\u003ePterostyrax\u003c\/em\u003e belongs to Styracaceae, the storax family, which also holds the snowbells and the American silverbells, \u003cem\u003eHalesia\u003c\/em\u003e. There is no ethnobotanical tradition worth reporting, no medicine, timber or food use of consequence. Bees work the panicles hard while they last, which in a June garden is a genuine service.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePlant the fragrant epaulette tree in moist but well-drained soil, in full sun for the heaviest flowering, and give room for a spreading crown. As with the smaller species, think about the sightline before planting: these panicles hang, so a position above a path, at the top of a slope, or where the tree can be looked into from a deck repays far more than the same tree set flat where the flowers end up overhead. Shelter from hard wind. Hardy through USDA zones 5 to 8. Prune in late winter only to shape the young frame, and be patient, since a young tree takes a few years to settle into heavy flowering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Arb O'Retum and Owen Johnson\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057948594291,"sku":"PTER-HISP-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/PterostyraxhispidusArbOReturn.jpg?v=1787189766"},{"product_id":"pterostyrax-corymbosa","title":"Pterostyrax corymbosus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe little epaulette tree is a rare small deciduous tree or large shrub from eastern Asia, and the common name is the best description anyone has managed. In late spring and early summer the branch tips hang with drooping panicles of small fragrant white flowers, and the effect really is of fringed military shoulder boards swinging from the ends of the branches. The leaves are ovate and bristle-toothed, the habit open and spreading, and the whole tree has an unforced elegance that the heavier flowering trees never quite reach.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA word on the name, because two versions are in circulation. The correct form of the epithet is \u003cem\u003ecorymbosus\u003c\/em\u003e, agreeing with the masculine genus, and older catalogs including our own have long carried the plant as \u003cem\u003ePterostyrax corymbosa\u003c\/em\u003e. The genus name is built from the Greek \u003cem\u003epteron\u003c\/em\u003e, a wing, and \u003cem\u003estyrax\u003c\/em\u003e, for the closely related storax; the wing refers to the fruit. \u003cem\u003ePterostyrax\u003c\/em\u003e sits in Styracaceae, the storax family, in the company of the snowbells and of our own native silverbells, \u003cem\u003eHalesia\u003c\/em\u003e, and this species was in fact once described as \u003cem\u003eHalesia corymbosa\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers give way to the feature that names the genus: small dry fruits carried on five distinct wings, ribbed and curious, persisting on the tree after the leaves have gone and worth looking at closely. Bees work the panicles thoroughly while they last, and the fragrance carries on a still evening. There is no ethnobotanical tradition to report here, no medicine or timber use of any consequence; the little epaulette tree is grown in gardens because somebody noticed how the flowers hang, and for once that is reason enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant the little epaulette tree as a specimen for a lawn or an open border in fertile, well-drained soil, in full sun to light shade, and give room for the spreading head to develop, reckoning on fifteen to twenty feet in most gardens and rather more with age and patience. Site the tree where the drooping flowers can be seen from below or from a slope, since a panicle hanging at eye level is worth far more than the same panicle overhead. Shelter from hard wind, which tears the soft foliage. Hardy through USDA zones 6 to 8. This is a genuinely uncommon tree in American gardens, and growing one is a small argument for widening the palette beyond the usual dozen.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057948758131,"sku":"PTER-CORY-01G","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/PterostyraxcorymbosusPhilipdeSpoelberch.jpg?v=1787187004"},{"product_id":"pyracomeles-vilmorinii","title":"Pyracomeles vilmorinii","description":"\u003cp\u003ePyracomeles vilmorinii is the sort of plant collectors trade knowing looks over, a small, fine-textured evergreen so uncommon that most gardeners have never met one. The little leaves are cut into narrow, fern-like divisions along arching, thornless branches, and in spring flat clusters of small white flowers give way by autumn to a scatter of coral-red fruits. The overall effect is airy and delicate, unusual in an evergreen shrub.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rarity has a story. This is a bigeneric hybrid, a cross between two whole genera of the rose family, the firethorn Pyracantha and the fern-leaved Osteomeles, which is why the made-up name Pyracomeles splices the two together. The plant appeared before 1922 at the Chenault nursery in Orleans, France, and was grown on in the celebrated garden of the de Vilmorins at Verrieres, whose name the hybrid carries. From the firethorn side come the flowers and coral fruit; from Osteomeles, the ferny leaves and, happily, no thorns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden Pyracomeles is easygoing and hardy through USDA zones 6 to 9, wanting sun to light shade and well-drained soil, drought-tolerant once settled. Size is the one thing to watch: often a low, mounding shrub of three to six feet, wider than tall, the plant can build larger with age in a warm climate, so give room or plan to prune. The coral fruits feed birds into the colder months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow this one for texture and for rarity: a fine-leaved evergreen for a rock garden, a low informal hedge, the front of a shrub border, or a container, where the ferny foliage sets off coarser neighbors and the spring flowers and fall fruit earn a second look. Thornless and well-mannered, Pyracomeles vilmorinii is the kind of quiet, well-bred plant that a certain sort of gardener falls hard for.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057950462067,"sku":"PYRA-VILM-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/PyracomelesvilmoriniiJCRA1.jpg?v=1784664146"},{"product_id":"rhodoleia-championii","title":"Rhodoleia championii","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare evergreen shrub or small tree from southern China and the neighboring subtropics, Rhodoleia championii is a connoisseur's plant, dramatic in bloom, refined in habit, and quietly excellent the year round. Thick, glossy, rounded leaves cloak the plant in deep green, and their softly glaucous, blue-gray undersides catch the light and every passing breeze, giving even the out-of-flower plant a handsome, layered presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the cool season and into early spring, pendulous clusters of rose-pink to scarlet flowers hang from the leaf axils on short stalks, each bloom framed by whorls of soft, rounded bracts, more jewel than blossom. Hong Kong, where the plant is a treasured native, calls the shrub the King of Hanging Bells and the Hong Kong Rose. The flowers belong unmistakably to the witch-hazel family, the Hamamelidaceae, kin to fothergilla and parrotia, and in the wild the nectar-rich, hanging heads are pollinated chiefly by birds, by white-eyes and sunbirds working the blooms, with bumblebees and honeybees taking a lesser share.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStill uncommon in American gardens, Rhodoleia has real promise in the lower South, where the plant performs beautifully when treated much as a camellia would be: acidic, well-drained soil, light shade, and shelter from hard freezes. Our stock traces to the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, shared with Woodlanders by our longtime friend and plantsman Bob Byrnes of Trail Ridge Nursery, provenance that matters and performance that has proven itself in the Southeast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow the Hong Kong rose as an evergreen specimen where the winter-into-spring bloom can be admired at close range, or train the pliable branches against a warm wall, a courtyard, or an espalier frame where the pendulous flowers can hang free. The dense, glossy, blue-backed foliage gives year-round structure among camellias, tea olive, and other broadleaf evergreens that share the taste for acid, well-drained ground. Give a sheltered spot out of hard freezes at the cold edge of the range, and site the plant where a close look rewards the curious, since the flowers are as strange and beautiful up close as they are showy from across the garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057976479859,"sku":"RHOD-CHAM-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG_2754.jpg?v=1775092386"},{"product_id":"rhodoleia-henryi","title":"Rhodoleia henryi","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe lesser-known of the two Hong Kong roses in the Woodlanders collection, Rhodoleia henryi is a handsome evergreen shrub or small tree from southern China and Taiwan, still little grown in the United States and, like much of the genus, occasionally muddled in the naming. Set beside the sister species Rhodoleia championii, this plant carries narrower, more pointed leaves, and the species is reckoned the more cold hardy of the two, a useful distinction for gardeners testing the edge of the range.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth Rhodoleias belong to the witch-hazel family, the Hamamelidaceae, and both open showy pink to red flowers over lovely glossy foliage. On henryi the bloom arrives in late winter and early spring, when little else stirs, in pendulous, tassel-like clusters of long, narrow crimson to deep magenta petals that dangle from the branches like small fireworks or feather dusters. The flowers are lightly fragrant and a genuine treat for the earliest pollinators, and the winter timing makes the plant a quiet piece of drama in a season starved for color.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOut of bloom the foliage carries the plant: deep green, leathery, neatly oblong leaves with a soft silvery underside that catches the light, and bronzy-red new growth that adds color even without flowers. Our stock of Rhodoleia henryi was shared with Woodlanders by Sean Hogan, the plantsman behind Cistus Nursery in Portland, Oregon, and a fine mature specimen grows at Hopelands Gardens here in Aiken, South Carolina, proof that the plant performs in the Southeastern garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow henryi as a slow, dense, upright evergreen for a sheltered woodland setting, a shaded border, or a courtyard where the winter bloom and the sculptural foliage can be enjoyed at close range. Give good, well-drained, acidic soil and a spot shaded from hot afternoon sun, and shelter young plants from hard freezes while they settle in. Pair with camellias, tea olive, and other broadleaf evergreens that share the taste for cool, acid ground, and site the plant where a winter walk will pass the flowers. A connoisseur's evergreen, rare in cultivation and rewarding to the patient.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057976545395,"sku":"RHOD-HENR-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2122.jpg?v=1720140866"},{"product_id":"schirrilinea-schima-x-franklinia","title":"Schima x Franklinia (×Schimlinia floribunda)","description":"\u003cp\u003e×Schimlinia floribunda is one of the rarest woody plants a gardener can grow: a deliberate intergeneric hybrid between two members of the tea family, Theaceae, uniting the fabled Franklinia alatamaha with the Asian evergreen Schima argentea. The cross marries the ornamental drama and hardiness of Franklinia with the vigor, adaptability, and evergreen constitution of Schima, and the result carries large, camellia-like white flowers, glossy foliage, and an upright, well-furnished frame. The hybrid formula name honors both parents at once, Schima and Franklinia folded into a single word.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe hybrid was raised by Dr. Thomas Ranney and colleagues at North Carolina State University's Mountain Horticultural Crops Research Station, from deliberate cross-pollinations made in 1999 and 2000 and repeated in 2002. The hybrid was formally described as ×Schimlinia floribunda in 2003, and the 2002 seedlings first flowered in 2004. The aim was frankly practical: to combine the desirable traits of a nearly impossible garden plant, Franklinia, with the easier temperament of a related genus, and so to carry rare Theaceae genetics into gardens that Franklinia alone would defeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHalf of that heritage is pure legend. Franklinia alatamaha, named by the botanist explorers John and William Bartram for their friend Benjamin Franklin, was found growing along Georgia's Altamaha River in 1765 and never reliably seen in the wild after the early nineteenth century. Every Franklin tree alive today descends from seed the Bartrams carried home to Philadelphia, which makes the parent one of horticulture's great rescues from extinction. Schima, the other parent, brings the broad evergreen leaves and lasting constitution of the warm-temperate Asian forests, a lineage as tough as Franklinia is delicate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, grow ×Schimlinia floribunda as a specimen or a large flowering shrub where the late show can be appreciated up close, for the fragrant white blooms open from late summer into fall when little else in the border is flowering. The glossy, deep-veined leaves hold much of the year, thinning somewhat at the cold edge of the range, so treat the plant as evergreen in the warm South and semi-evergreen where winters bite. High heat and humidity tolerance make ×Schimlinia a natural for southeastern gardens; give a sheltered, part-shaded to sunny site, rich well-drained soil, and the company of camellias, tea olives, and other broadleaf evergreens that share the taste. To grow this hybrid is to keep a living piece of botanical history, and one of the newest chapters in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of Trees and Shrubs Online and Ruth Happel.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994633331,"sku":"SCHI-X-FRAN-SCHI-01G","price":62.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/89526F63-5180-4B51-B845-A9DC8F8DEC1E.jpg?v=1722558852"},{"product_id":"sinojackia-xylocarpa","title":"Sinojackia xylocarpa","description":"\u003cp\u003eSinojackia xylocarpa is a rare flowering treasure from the hills of eastern China, a deciduous small tree or large shrub that few gardeners have ever met. Known as the jacktree, the species belongs to the storax family, Styracaceae, a close cousin of the snowbells and silverbells, and carries the same poetry of spring: pendant, bell-shaped white flowers that dangle beneath arching branches like small antique lanterns swaying in a breeze.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe botanical name tells part of the story. Sinojackia joins Sino, for China, with a tribute to John George Jack, the Arnold Arboretum dendrologist, while the species name xylocarpa means woody-fruited, for the distinctive hard, woody fruits that follow the flowers and give the tree a second season of interest. Elliptical, softly toothed leaves emerge fresh and green, spreading with age into a light, elegant canopy that casts dappled shade beneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets the jacktree apart is not beauty alone but genuine rarity. Once native to a narrow band of Jiangsu Province around Nanjing and Jurong, Sinojackia xylocarpa is now considered extinct in the wild, surviving only in botanic gardens and a handful of cultivated collections. To plant one is to join a small circle of gardeners keeping an all but vanished species alive, a living echo of the story of Franklinia, saved from oblivion by cultivation alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, the jacktree grows slowly and with quiet dignity, eventually reaching ten to twenty feet in height and width. Give fertile, well-drained, evenly moist soil and full sun to part shade, and site the tree where the spring bells can be met at close range: a courtyard, a woodland edge, a specimen lawn, or the heart of a collector's garden. Few small trees marry architectural grace and delicate bloom as this one does, and fewer still carry so rare a story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of Jim Robbins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057996927091,"sku":"SINO-XYLO-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/SinojackiaxylocarpaJimRobbinsWoodlanders1.png?v=1749132377"},{"product_id":"thujopsis-dolobrata-nana","title":"Thujopsis dolabrata 'Nana'","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dwarf form of one of Japan's legendary Five Sacred Trees of Kiso, the goboku no kinbatsu, a select group of conifers protected by feudal law for centuries, reserved for imperial residences and temple construction, where commoners caught poaching the wood faced execution. The species, Thujopsis dolabrata, is endemic to Japan and known there as asunaro, a name that translates beautifully and a little wistfully as tomorrow it will become hinoki, a nod to the tree's resemblance to the more revered hinoki cypress, forever almost but not quite the more famous tree. Thujopsis is the sole species in the entire genus.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Nana' is the dwarf form, a Japanese garden selection old enough that no one is sure exactly when it arose, though Veitch and Sons Nursery in England introduced the plant to the Western trade in the early 1860s, placing it in the same wave of Japanese garden cultivars that arrived as Meiji-era Japan opened to the West. The plant grows as a flat-topped, bun-shaped mound, and slowly: real growth measures in inches a year, not feet, a foot tall and three feet wide after a decade being typical, and four to six feet across after twenty years and more the upper end.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe visual signature is the foliage. Each leaf is a thick, hatchet-shaped scale, the epithet dolabrata coming from the Latin dolabra, a hatchet, arranged in flat overlapping sprays that look from above like miniature glossy ferns or, depending on the eye, antler velvet, hence a cluster of English common names that include elkhorn cedar, staghorn cedar, and dwarf hiba cedar. Turn a spray over and the real surprise appears: the underside of every leaf is marked with a vivid silvery-white stomatal band, painted on like a brushstroke. In sunlight the contrast between glossy emerald above and silver below is the kind of detail that makes a visitor bend down for a closer look. In winter the foliage often takes on bronze or russet tones, especially in colder zones, before settling back to deep green in spring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBest in part shade in the Southeast, though full sun is fine in cooler climates; in zones 7 and 8 a little afternoon shelter keeps the foliage from looking thin by late summer. Handsome in a Japanese garden, beside a stone basin or lantern, in the foreground of a woodland border, or in a large container, where the measured pace and slow architecture earn more attention than a faster plant could.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA plant for the gardener who has stopped buying for instant impact and started buying for what they want to be looking at in twenty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdditional photo courtesy of Oregon State University.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058003513459,"sku":"THUJ-DOLO-NANA-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Thujopsisdolabrata_Nana_OGSU.jpg?v=1777491330"},{"product_id":"torreya-taxifolia","title":"Torreya taxifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eStinking Cedar is a beautiful conifer despite the name. The foliage actually smells pleasant! It is a medium size pyramidal evergreen tree with Yew-like leaves and purple nutmeg-like fruit on female plants. Needs light organic soil, adequate moisture and part shade. This very rare conifer is native to a very limited area on the Apalachicola River in northwest Florida and adjacent Georgia where it is now almost extinct. It is a FEDERALLY LISTED ENDANGERED SPECIES. CANNOT BE SOLD IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058004365427,"sku":"TORR-TA-IFOL-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-949.jpg?v=1720141467"},{"product_id":"ugni-molinae","title":"Ugni molinae","description":"\u003cp\u003eUgni molinae, the Chilean guava, is a small evergreen shrub of the myrtle family, native to the temperate forests of Chile and adjoining southern Argentina. Gardeners of an older generation will know the plant as Myrtus ugni, the name the shrub long circulated under. The genus name Ugni comes straight from uñi, the Mapuche word for the plant, while the species honors Juan Ignacio Molina, the Jesuit naturalist who first chronicled the flora of Chile; in the plant's homeland the shrub is simply murta or murtilla.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmall, glossy, leathery leaves clothe the shrub in dense, aromatic evergreen texture, and in late spring nodding white to pale-pink bells hang among them, sweet-scented and thick with stamens. What follows is the whole point of the plant: small round berries, dusky red when ripe, tasting of strawberry and cranberry with a resinous, wild-honey warmth. Chileans call the fruit murta, steep the berries into the liqueur murtado, cook them into jam and kuchen, and pair them with quince, while English gardeners simply call the fruit delicious.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Chilean guava carries a small, famous piece of horticultural legend. Introduced to England in the 1840s by the plant hunter William Lobb, the fruit is said to have become a favorite of Queen Victoria, who reportedly had the berries brought up from Cornwall for the royal table. The Mapuche people had long gathered murtilla from the wild for food and for aromatic leaf infusions, and the plant remains a cherished country fruit across southern Chile, harvested from wild and tended stands alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden the Chilean guava earns a place as a neat, fine-textured evergreen for a sunny border, a low informal hedge, an edible landscape, or a large container. Still barely known in the southern United States, though better established in the Pacific Northwest, the shrub is worth trying in zones 8 and 9, ideally in sandy, acid, well-drained soil with shelter from fierce afternoon sun where summers turn hot. Give the plant a warm, bright spot and the reward is a handsome evergreen that also fills a bowl with one of the finest small fruits a temperate garden can ripen.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058006560883,"sku":"UGNI-MOLI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2146.jpg?v=1720141546"},{"product_id":"schimlinia-schima-lina-ding-dong","title":"×Schimlinia 'Schima Lina Ding Dong'","description":"\u003cp\u003eA modern Franklin tree with year-round presence and late-summer perfume. ×Schimlinia 'Schima Lina Ding Dong' is a rare intergeneric hybrid bred to capture the romance of the lost Franklin tree while adding real garden durability. Raised by the Mountain Crop Improvement Lab at NC State, the selection crosses Franklinia alatamaha, the legendary Georgia native long gone from the wild and famous for luminous white flowers, with Schima remotiserrata, a broadleaf evergreen of the tea family from Asia. The result is an elegant evergreen carrying fragrant, white, camellia-like blooms in late summer, just when the garden most wants a fresh highlight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the event. Clusters of pure white blooms with a boss of golden stamens open from late summer into early fall, drawing pollinators and passing noses alike, and early trials report heavier bud set and more abundant bloom than either parent. Glossy, deep green foliage keeps the plant dressed the year round in mild climates, holding evergreen to semi-evergreen depending on winter severity, so the shrub earns a place in leaf as much as in flower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe cross was made on purpose: Franklinia's beauty married to Schima's adaptability, an intentional pairing meant to improve vigor and cultural flexibility while keeping the classic white-flowered look. For the collector, the pedigree is part of the pleasure. ×Schimlinia is the nothogenus for Franklinia and Schima hybrids, first achieved at NC State as ×Schimlinia floribunda using Schima argentea; 'Schima Lina Ding Dong' is a newer cross using Schima remotiserrata, which keeps the refined form but adds broadleaf evergreen character and late-summer scent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet the plant as a specimen near a path, a patio, or an entry where the late-summer fragrance can be met at close range, and let the neat, upright, evergreen frame anchor a mixed border, a white garden, or a collector's planting. Give full sun to light afternoon shade, moist, acidic, well-drained soil, and enjoy a four-season plant with a genuine botanical story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43638463201395,"sku":"SCHI-SHIM-LINA-DING-01G","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/xSchimlininaShimaLindaWoodlanders1.jpg?v=1755632903"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/curiosities.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}