Pyracomeles vilmorinii

Pyracomeles 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.

The 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.

In 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.

Grow 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.