Tree ID

[Lesley Cox]

I don't want to start a new thread for this as I already did so, soon after the NZ Trillium weekend (Sept  8-9 2011) but I can't find that thread.

Apart from the general thought that it was witch hazel family, no-one was sure. I now know it to be Davidia involucrata, seen yesterday and some seeds picked up in an Ashburton garden. Here is one, and the original pictures of the seed and the very small, new tree.

[johnw]

I'm shocked to see flowers on such a small tree Lesley. I thought this one took donkey years to flower.

johnw

[TheOnionMan]

Are you sure that is Davidia involucrata seed?  The seeds of this tree are relatively huge and round.

[Lesley Cox]

There were a number of seeds on the ground, brown ones and almost black, scruffy ones from the previous year, and still green ones on the tree itself. Betty Clark who will be 90 in a few days but believe me is fully compos mentis, (is that how to spell it?) said the tree is the handkerchief tree and planted it herself many years ago. Maybe 20 feet high now. She described the "flowers" perfectly. My mother always said they looked like dirty rags but she didn't have it and was prejudiced. I had a small one at our previous garden and it started to flower in its third year, about 1 metre so yes, I'm sure. Maybe different clones/climates?

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, your first posts about this tree where in a thread about another tree ID ......

http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8041.msg218175#msg218175


 

[Olga Bondareva]

Lesley, happy you if you can grow Davidia! It's my love (not mutual of course) for many years! First I saw it in Czech:









And I can't forget that miraculous tree.
It's seeds look like at your first photo.

[DaveM]

Wow!!!!!!   Such superb photos   Olga of a fabulous tree - one of my favourites.
Have seen this in flower here in Scotland at Cluny and also at Kew; on one visit to Sechuan tried to find this in the valley where it was originally found, but the local police commander wouldn't let us get high enough up the valley  
Wish I could grow it here, but too windy I think  

[Lesley Cox]

Yes, that's it, all right. Thanks for the wonderful pictures Olga. It is a superb thing and I now realize as I get older that I disagree with quite a number of my mother's ideas, about many subjects. I wonder if the seeds will germinate and how long they'll take, as I'm not sure that it is available from local nurseries now.

Thanks for that link Maggi, as soon as I saw John F's posts I remembered that he and not I had started that thread.

[Hoy]

I picked some seeds from the ground when I visited England 2-3 years ago. The seeds sprouted 100% during the spring. Seedpots in a cold greenhouse during the winter.

Where I work it grows a small tree that flowered last year for the first time. It was planted several years ago and has needed many years to reach flowering size here (not like your plant, Lesley :-) ). I think it needs really warm summers to produce flowerbuds but it grows well here in our cool climate.

[Lesley Cox]

Perhaps our warmer, longer summers are helpful with other trees too. Magnolia campbellii fro instance, flowers here in 8 - 10 years from seed whereas I believe it takes from 20 - 30 years in the United Kingdom. We are very fortunate here in Dunedin, (please forgive the unintended pun) to have a number of specimens still growing and flowering well from the original collections of Robert Fortune.