×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.
This Stewartia is a large growing tree form with dark green leaves which turn a brilliant red in the fall. The gold-centered 3 inch white flowers typically bloom from June to July. Its marbled exfoliating bark ranges in colors from grayish-brown to orange-brown. Sometimes listed as Stewartia pseudocamellia var. koreana. The Japanese Stewartia pseudocamellia is similar but does not get as large. Stewartia should have a well-drained fertile soil with ample moisture.
Stewartia malacodendron is a much sought native deciduous shrub, and one of only two stewartias native to the United States. The species sits in Theaceae, the tea family, so the kinship with Camellia is real and visible the moment the flowers open: white, three inches across, built like a single rose, with a boss of purple-filamented stamens around blue anthers at the center. Nothing else in an American woodland looks remotely like it. The plant is found mostly on streamside slopes in rich woods and is widely scattered in spots from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas, never in stands, usually as three to ten plants in a place. Bloom comes in early summer, a flower or two at a time over several weeks, and the autumn foliage turns orange to red.
Tall stewartia is an upright deciduous tree of medium size, and for most of the year the reason to grow one is the trunk. The bark sheds in thin flakes to leave a smooth surface of cinnamon and orange-brown, warm enough to pull the eye across a winter garden from some distance, and the effect only improves as the tree ages. Abundant small white flowers follow in summer and the leaves turn red and purple in fall, but the bark is the long argument. Reckon on twenty to twenty-five feet in a garden, though in the forests of Japan the species has been recorded at eighty.
This lovely flowering tree in the tea family is native to Japan. It is uncommon but is probably the Stewartia most often seen in cultivation. It is a small to medium size deciduous tree that bears large white flowers with yellow stamens and has attractive exfoliating bark and good yellow to red fall color. Plant in fertile, well-drained soil in sun or semi-shade with irrigation during dry periods. Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants describes it as " magnificent" and "a worthy tree for the garden". It is hardy and probably best suited in zones cooler than zone 8.
Beaked stewartia is one of the rarest plants in a genus that has no common members, and we are indebted to Roger Gossler of Oregon for our stock. He calls the species one of the rarest Stewartias, grown above all for the large maroon calyx that closes around the seed pods once the flowers have fallen. "Very beautiful," he says, and Gossler has grown more stewartias than most gardeners will ever see. In the garden the plant makes a deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree, pyramidal while young and rounding into an oval with age, reaching anywhere from thirteen to thirty-odd feet depending on how patient the gardener turns out to be.
This small tree of Chinese origin has showy white flowers and fall foliage that is red or reddish, and the smooth whitish trunks with exfoliating bark are an important ornamental feature. In truth the bark is the reason most people plant one. Old stems shed in thin plates to leave a polished, mottled surface in cream, buff, and cinnamon that looks best in winter when nothing distracts from it, and improves every year for decades. The flowers arrive in early summer, white and cupped, about two inches across with a central boss of yellow stamens, unmistakably the work of a relative of Camellia. Then autumn brings a clean red. Very few small trees do three distinct things this well.
Thick, dark green foliage and good growth make this Stewartia collected in Yunnan, China, a very promising new plant for southern gardens. We have not been able to locate information on its flowers, ultimate size or hardiness.
