Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Purpureus'

Holly osmanthus is a large evergreen Asian shrub whose leaves do a convincing impression of holly, spined, glossy and hard, so convincing that people reach for the plant expecting berries and are surprised twice: first by the fragrance, and then by the fact that the leaves are set in opposite pairs, which no holly ever manages. 'Purpureus' adds one thing to that reliable frame. New growth breaks a deep purple-black, holds the color for weeks, and settles into dark green still tinged with purple, so the shrub flushes dark twice a year rather than green.

This clone was raised at Kew Gardens in England in 1880 and has been passed hand to hand ever since, and among growers 'Purpureus' carries a reputation as the most cold-hardy form of Osmanthus heterophyllus, which is why the plant turns up in gardens well north of where the species is usually attempted. The genus name is a plain description built from the Greek osme, fragrance, and anthos, flower. The epithet heterophyllus means variable-leaved, and the plant earns it: juvenile growth low on the shrub is fiercely spined, while the upper and older growth often loses the teeth entirely and goes smooth-edged. Osmanthus sits in Oleaceae, the olive family, alongside lilac, forsythia and jasmine.

The flowering is the reason to plant one where people walk. In autumn, small waxy white flowers open in tight clusters in the leaf axils, easy to miss on the branch and impossible to miss on the air, throwing a sweet apricot-and-jasmine scent that carries across a garden on a still October evening. This is a shrub sited by the nose rather than the eye. In Japan the related Osmanthus fragrans scents tea and sweets; holly osmanthus has no such culinary tradition and is grown for the perfume where it stands.

Use 'Purpureus' as a hedge, a screen, a barrier planting where the spined lower growth does real work, or as a slow specimen at ten to twelve feet, in sun or semi-shade in fertile, moist, well-drained soil. Set the shrub beside a path, a gate, or a door so the autumn scent is walked through rather than admired from a distance, and let the purple new growth read against something plain. Deer leave the plant alone, which the spines explain. Growth is slow, so buy the size you can wait for. Hardy through USDA zones 6 to 9. One honest caution: those spines are genuinely sharp, so keep the shrub back from where bare arms brush past.