Symplocos paniculata

You'd be hard pressed to find a large shrub/small tree with prettier fruit than Symplocos paniculata. So eye-catching!

Scott

It's not going to knock your socks off the rest of the year, but still...

Scott

One more

Scott

One less.

Scott

Good Heavens.
I demand, on Terry's behalf, you submit those to PlantFiles (especially the first and third ones)

Kenton (no lnger in socks)

Scott, what a gorgeous blue! Thanks for introducing me to this beauty. Checked out Dirr's photos and looks like it's a real knockout in bloom as well. Have added it to my wish list :)


This message was edited Oct 14, 2006 5:19 AM

Dirr's photo

And the flowers are fragrant! Does it need to be limbed up at the bottom then to look like the ones in Scott's third picture?

Good question, PrizeGal! I get the impression that the trees I photographed may have been limbed up, but I don't have the usual evidence to prove it. Interestingly, at Mt. Airy, where there are several plants, every plant was loaded with berries. A single tree at Spring grove had none, so Symplocos may behave like Viburnums do, or perhaps there are even male and female plants. Not much literature on this one in which to look it up.

Scott

Nice porcelain coloured berries. Nice pics - thanks! :-)

Actually bothered to look this up in Dirr and he pronouces the flowers "perfect" or unisexual, which would mean that a single plant can bear fruit. The Spring Grove plant, while sizeably bigger than these I photographed at Mt. Airy, was in such a state of stress that I didn't even take a picture of it. I mention this only because it might explain the lack of fruit on that specimen. Now, aha!, reading a little further in Dirr, he says: "plant several seedlings or different clones to insure cross-pollination; have a lone plant in my Georgia garden that flowers well but sets little fruit: suspect another seedling is necessary for cross-pollination." So, okay, Symplocos behaves just like many viburnums. As you can see from my pictures, they ain't particularly small, so save room.

I happen to know Symplocos seeds are a (insert some proper explative here) to germinate, which would possibly explain the rarity of this plant, except that Dirr reports 100% success on July cuttings. So who knows?

With such a profusion of fruit, invasiveness was a nagging issue ping-ponging around the cavernous back of my mind, and Dirr says that in Mt. Airy numerous stray seedlings are evident around several large shrubs, but I looked around and saw none at all. This might be meaningful but for the fact that Mt. Airy has such an enormous deer problem that anything less than five feet tall is entirely obliterated from existence unless it is top-shelf toxic.

Going to Mt. Airy anymore is distressing. It is more like a plant zoo than an arboretum. I have never gone there and not seen deer milling around in broad daylight like teenage gang members. Every plant is imprisoned behind 8' deer fence. Sometimes plants are behind two sets of deer fence. It is ridiculous. They once had one of the finest V. dilatatum collections, but it was decimated. Only a few roped off, sad specimens remain.

Scott

Scott,

thanks for the scoop on Mt. Airy. I visited once about 3 years ago in January and always wanted to go back but perhaps I'd be better off in new one south of Cinci.

Regards,
Ernie

Ernie,

It is still worth going for a quick visit, but the quality of the arboretum is compromised by it being part of a very large urban park/forest within the City's political framework. Lots of sometimes conflicting interests and voices at play.

Scott

Grrr. Those (blankety-blank) deer! I know, I know, they were here first, but waaay too many live on such sparse forest preserved areas now, they have become a real danger. My daughter said last night a huge buck ran right in front of her car! (Again, but that's because she drives to friend's houses a lot, and we live at the edge of the woods). It's really bad this time of year, esp at sunset.

That is stunning. Much better than the crab apple in my front yard, which is only nice in spring. Heard on a local news commercial snippet that hunting is declining across the country. Didn't see the full story.

I have seen no evidence of a decline in hunting around here! Deer are a constant problem in unfenced yards and stroll around in broad day light in the middle of town. Of course, no one is going to shoot them in the middle of town.
We have lots of hunters and lots of deer and lots of elk as well. Some parts of town can't have a garden due to the elk. We also have mountain lions, bob cats, bear and coyotes, but they don't seem to be able to stay ahead of the deer and elk.
My unfenced property has only one fruit tree that managed to get tall before the deer devoured it. The rest are only as tall as the wire cages I put around them.

Pajamatime,

I'll trade you a Symplocos paniculata seeds for a mountain lion!

Scott

PGZ5 The deer weren't there first. 50+years ago all the boys I ran with considered the Forest Preserve area, a couple miles south of you,to be our hunting preserve. WE knew every inch of Sweet Woods and Jergenson Woods and there were no deer. We kept the small game population under controll though, LOL We used to swim in the bottom of the rock quarry. The kids probably can't do that today either

Wow, that's not a couple miles from me, it's right down the street! (I'm in the old part of town, not "the reservation"). Actually, I'm on the street Brownell Woods is on, you can walk through the woods to Jergenson & Sweet Woods. Did you know "The Road to Perdition" with Tom Hanks was filmed there? You probably recognized it. There is an old quarry on the cemetery property on Brown Derby Road that you can fish in (you can, but you're not supposed to, LOL), is that where you went swimming? No kids allowed in the part they mine, but they do offer tours. Small world, isn't it?

Gorgeous!

Midwest has the best fall colors.


This message was edited Oct 21, 2006 9:46 PM