Mahonia for identification

[Paddy Tobin]

I saw this mahonia in Mount Usher gardens, Co. Wicklow, on Monday last and was taken by it. It has a good strong orange tint to the flowers.

Any suggestions for a species/cultivar name?

Paddy

[Maggi Young]

What a super colour, and good foliage... looks even more spiny than the usual type....
perhaps Mahonia nitens ?

[Paddy Tobin]

Maggi,

I would expect more red in the leaf stalk for M. nitens and think the flower on M. nitens it pale yellow. I had been veering towards M. x savilliana or a hybrid with that in the parentage.

Mahonias are hardly the height of fashion but are good reliable shrubs with glossy evergreen foliage and attractive flowers. This one struck me as very worth a place in the garden.

Paddy

[Maggi Young]

Only seen pix of M x savilliana, Paddy, but thought  its's foliage was less spiky?
Have heard of nitens cultivars with more orange flowers and those chunky flower stems.

This may be of passing interest to some...... http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/RHS-Publications/Journals/The-Plantsman/2011-issues/March/w-Mahonia

[Maggi Young]

Hmmm.... been searching the internet.... found some good close-ups of  M. nitens and read the Flora of China description...... seems I was thinking of another plant ( but which? ) ....  the plant in your photo is much more spiny than nitens should be......

I'm liking this Irish plant more and more .

[Paddy Tobin]

Yeah, it's a good one, Maggi.


Oh, by the way, we had Ian of the Christie Kind with us in Cork last evening - a wonderful talk about plants by a plant nutcase, really enjoyable. Great reaction from those present; great practical advice and hints - especially for me with trilliums.

Paddy

[manicbotanic]

could it be mairei?

[Graham Catlow]

could it be mairei?

That was my first thought.

Found this photo

[Carlo]

It's a honey whatever it is.... I hope we can definitively i.d. it!

[Paddy Tobin]

Graham,

Your photograph certainly replicates what I saw on Monday last.

From Jim Gardiner's just published, "Timber Press Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs": "A broad-spreading evergreen  shrub grown for its bold green foliage and long erect racemes of bright orange-yellow flowers"

Peculiarly, the photograph used to illustrate this plant in the book is distinctly yellow, almost a lemon yellow.

I think you have nailed it, Graham.

I've just had a look in the Plant Finder, in hopes of ordering one, to find it is not listed.

Many thanks, Paddy

[Casalima]

From Jim Gardiner's just published, "Timber Press Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs": "A broad-spreading evergreen  shrub grown for its bold green foliage and long erect racemes of bright orange-yellow flowers"
Peculiarly, the photograph used to illustrate this plant in the book is distinctly yellow, almost a lemon yellow.
I think you have nailed it, Graham.
I've just had a look in the Plant Finder, in hopes of ordering one, to find it is not listed.

I was about to the say the same about the description vs. photo in the Encyclopedia of Flowering Shrubs! It's the same in Daniel Hinkley's The Explorer's Garden (he calls it Mahonia duclouxiana) - "Erect, spidery trusses of orange flowers" but rather yellow flowers in the photograph. He also describes it as "perhaps the most splendid of all the flowering plants in my garden"! Paddy, the flowers also look longer in both books than in your photographs (do they lengthen with age?) and the leaves much less holly-like.

[Paddy Tobin]

My photograph was of the first of the flowers on the shrub that was beginning to open so I think it reasonable to say that it was a young/immature flower; only the lower blossoms were opening and those higher up were still tightly closed.  I can imagine that the flower spike will stretch as the season progresses.

I can find no mention of M. duclouxiana in the Plant Finder. Must look at Dan Hinkley's book.

Paddy

[Maggi Young]

http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200008391 for description of Mahonia duclouxiana

[manicbotanic]

my mairei is about to flower in greenhouse so will put a piccy up when it does.the leaves look finer on paddy pic.
most are quite big but i suppose there very variable.i have quite a number inc chochoca.huiliensis.i am quite mad on them..

[Paddy Tobin]

Shaun,

We see very few other than the mass produced ones but there are several which are very attractive plants and well worth a place in the garden.

Looking forward to seeing your photographs in due course,

Paddy