{"product_id":"calycanthus-floridus-michael-lindsey","title":"Calycanthus floridus 'Michael Lindsey'","description":"\u003cp\u003eCalycanthus floridus 'Michael Lindsey' is the sweetshrub gardeners reach for when fragrance is the whole point. The species, Carolina allspice, is a southeastern native beloved for reddish-brown flowers that smell of ripe fruit, but the scent varies wildly from seedling to seedling, and 'Michael Lindsey' was chosen precisely for a rich, dependable perfume. Add glossy dark green foliage and clear golden fall color, and this selection has become a benchmark, one the plantsman Michael Dirr called the standard by which other introductions will be measured.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders owes this plant to the plantsman Allen Bush, who selected, named, and introduced 'Michael Lindsey' through his Holbrook Farm and Nursery in Fletcher, North Carolina, now long closed. The clone earned a Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Gold Medal on merit, chief among the reasons that reliable fruity fragrance carried on flowers of deep reddish-brown. In warm weather the scent, variously read as strawberry, pineapple, or melon, drifts on the air rather than waiting to be found.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus name joins the Greek words for calyx and flower, for the curious bloom in which petals and sepals look alike, a ring of narrow, strappy, magnolia-like tepals. Those flowers run a clever trap, since the fruity scent lures small beetles inside, where they shelter and feed before carrying pollen out to the next bloom, an ancient pollination bargain older than bees on flowers. The aromatic bark and leaves, spicy when bruised, gave rise to the allspice names, though every part carries the alkaloid calycanthine and should never be eaten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite Calycanthus floridus 'Michael Lindsey' where people pass close, beside a path, a doorway, a patio, or a seat, so the fragrance is part of the day. The shrub takes full sun to part shade and average, well-drained soil, growing dense and rounded and asking little, and the cut flowers scent a room. For a native, trouble-free, deer-resistant shrub that earns a place on perfume alone, this is among the very best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822306419,"sku":"CALY-FLOR-MICH-LIND-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1911.jpg?v=1720136858","url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/products\/calycanthus-floridus-michael-lindsey","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}