A little more fall color

Fall color is getting a little harder to find, but it's still around, or changing from leaves to other things. Aronia arbutifolia is still looking great, delivering alarmingly saturated reds.

Scott

Fruits are beautiful, too.

Berberis koreana.

Quercus prinoides.

Berberis x ottowaensis Superba.

Hypericum spp "Gemo."

Viburnum x burkwoodii seedling.

Winter bark is beginning to intensify. I like the golden color of this Acer rufinerve x "White Tigress" hybrid.

Scott

Very nice Photinia and the V. x burkwoodii looks great too.

Scott,

lots of different things there. I especially like the Acer. Where did you find it? Very neat bark; like the Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter's Fire.' Excellent color on the Burkwood seedling too. It seems that it has taken on more V. carlesii character, at least in leaf shape.

Ernie

Malice,

That maple is my pride and joy. A friend of mine collected that seed from the "White Tigress" at Dawes, which is right next to an Acer rufinerve. The characteristics of the tree, as far as I can tell at this fairly early stage, are intermediate. The bark is indeed much more rufinerve than "White Tigress," and like several A. conspicuum cultivars, the color definitely intensifies for winter.

Equil,

Those are Aronia berries, not Photinia. But, no matter, they are lovely whatever they are called.

Malice again,

There might be V. carlesii in that plant, because it is from open pollinated seed I collected and it might be a backcross. Interestingly, although the plant has nice form and good fall color, the flowering occurs on the stem axels within the plant and not out at the tips. Diminishes from their impact, although fragrance is pretty good.

Viburnum Valley,

Although you haven't weighed in here quite yet, I have a V. x burkwoodii question. Sometimes you can buy V. burkwoodii cultivars, like "Mohawk," and you know you are not only getting the V. x burkwoodii cross (what? V. carlesii x V. utile?) but a specific cultivar. But other times when you buy V. x burkwoodii it is labeled simply V. x burkwoodii. Are these produced by repeated crosses of the same parents, or are they vegetative clones of the original cross that simply wasn't named?

Scott

V x burkwoodii is a hybrid hence the lowercase x. The little x will indicate when a plant is a hybrid. This plant's parentage is V. utile and V. carlesii.

'Chenaultii', 'Conoy', and 'Mohawk' are simply cultivars of a hybrid as opposed to being cultivars of a straight species. .

Scott. Does your Hypericum make the orange and yellow fruit? I spent 12 hours one saturday googling Hypericums trying to find the cultivar that produces the yellow/orange fruit without any luck. Is Gemo that cultivar or do you happen to know which one it is? I am trying to locate some to grow and not having any luck.

Thanks!

Starlight,

Check out Hypericum androsaemum "Albury Purple," or just H. androsaemum. This might be the plant you are looking for.

Equil, That's not my question. I know what a cross is. Maybe I wasn't clear. My real question is this: What really are the plants on the market simply labeled as V. x burkwoodii? Sure, they are the V. carlesii x V. utile hybrid (thnaks for confirming the actual species. I was uncertain, pre-coffee, off the cuff, this AM), but are these plants vegetative clones of the first released V. carlesii x V. utile cross, or could they be the seedlings of ANY V. carlesii x V. utile cross? In other words, when one buys a V. x burkwoodii plant, can they be sure of exactly how the plant will grow, or could it display the variability of any inter-specific cross?

Scott

Still fairly hard to find here, tho' there's getting to be a little more. Most deciduous trees are still green though, after the warmest autumn on record.

Resin

I was under the impression the x burkwoodii resulted from natural hybridization. You could attempt to recreate the characteristics of x burkwoodii by crossing utile with carlesii however you may not produce a plant with the characteristics you were going for.

When you grow seeds of a hybrid, such as when I sow seeds off my V. x burkwoodii plants, and assuming they are self-pollinated or pollinated by one of my other V. x burkwoodii cultivars, is it correct to call the resultant seedlings simply V. x burkwoodii?

Is it safe to assume that it is far easier and cheaper for guys to vegetatively propagate V. x burkwoodii from selected stock plants and named cultivars, and that the only people actually out there hand-crossing V. carlesii with V. utile are those few who are seeking to create new selections to name?

scott

I don't know about all that......but look at this, taken in the driving rain today in Cherokee Park.

All you arrowwood lovers, unite!

Drawing you in...

One close shot...

...to another...

...to the last.

I believe you would label your plants as V. x burkwoodii x ? (open pollinated) or rather a plant mutt. In this scenario, you only know one of the parents. This is what I do with Sarracenia that I don't wrap in cheesecloth that are allowed to open pollinate.



Tough question to answer the way you worded it. Asexually propagating named cultivars of V. x burkwoodii would certainly ensure that you would end up with a perfect little knock off of the parent plant. Whether it is easier and cheaper from a time and $$$ standpoint is up to you to determine given there are at least two nurseries out there selling 2 year old bareroot named cultivars of x burkwoodii for well under $10 a piece.

Yes and no to hand crossing V. carlesii with V. utile to create new selections to register. When crossing a V. utile with a V. utile you end up with an F1 generation (not V. x burkwoodii). I believe this cross is referred to as an interspecific hybrid. The offspring will probably exhibit heterosis (hybrid vigor) and may or may not exhibit desirable characteristics of either parent. Many folk work with interspecific hybridization to improve plant qualites or just to play. I repeatedly played trying to come close to recreating Sarracenia x areolata by crossing and backcrossing and crossing and backcrossing S. leucophylla and S. alata and never did come close but I sure did come up with some interesting offspring.

One thing is for sure, I doubt it would be easier and cheaper or even possible in our lifetimes to sexually propagate V. x burkwoodii by creating our own crosses using carlesii and utile because x burkwoodii is a species unto itself as it hybridized naturally over many years to the extent it is genetically stable. I have read that it takes around 50 generations for a successful hybrid to evolve into a new species where offspring will be uniform save an occasional sport that may occur.

Berberis oblongifolia keeps turning up the heat. I am so fond of this little shrub. Know virtually nothing about it. Don't know why it is so rare!

Scott

A close up of the foliage shows the actual intensity of the color better.

Scott

And I wanted to revisit the discussion of V. x burkwoodii for a minute, if I could. Do we know for a fact that V. x burkwoodii is a stabilized natural hybrid? That would be most interesting. I had always assumed it was one of the USDA Gaithersburg, MD introductions, but as I say, I cannot remember ever hearing that from a solid source. It was probably an assumption bases simply on the fact that so many Viburnum cultivars and crosses have come from there.

Scott

I can only stand silent so long...

Viburnum x burkwoodii is the hybrid plant resulting from the crossing of two other viburnums, Viburnum carlesii and Viburnum utile. It is important to know the seed parent (female) and the pollen parent (male) when stating hybrids (female x male), because the reverse isn't always the same. One should strive to get it right, not just wing around names loosely.

Viburnum x burkwoodii is species name for Viburnum carlesii x Viburnum utile. It is important to know this about Burkwood viburnum, if you care about a cross-pollinator or if you care about other related plants that are not exactly alike.

Where to begin? For one, many of the named plants listed as clones of Viburnum x burkwoodii have Burkwood viburnum as one parent crossed (or backcrossed) with another similar plant, like Viburnum carlesii, Viburnum utile, or Viburnum x 'Cayuga'. 'Cayuga' is itself quite the, uh, mixed parentage child with a lineage of V. carlesii x V. x carlcephalum (which is V. carlesii x V. macrocephalum var. keteleeri). If you don't like plant husbandry, I'd guess your clicking off this thread about now.

Burkwood viburnum was developed at the nursery of Albert Burkwood and Geoffrey Skipwith in England in 1914. Viburnum utile hails from central China, Ichang province, and was introduced around 1901. Viburnum carlesii hails from Korea and an island of Japan, and was introduced in 1812. This is not a natural hybrid.

Plants purchased as Viburnum x burkwoodii are minimally rooted cuttings of another Viburnum x burkwoodii. I presume that there are more than one of this species growing out in cultivation. To develop a separate species, the English nurserymen had to have spent some time making controlled crosses and growing out seeds. Their work began in 1914 and they introduced the species in 1924. I suppose you could "create" your own Viburnum x burkwoodii by carefully placing fresh V. utile pollen on fresh V. carlesii flowers, and then capturing the seeds of that union and growing them out.

'Mohawk' is a named cultivar (produced clonally) introduced by the US National Arboretum. It is usually referred to as a Burkwood viburnum, but its parentage is Viburnum x burkwoodii x Viburnum carlesii, created in 1953 by Dr. Donald Egolf. I take a moment of silence whenever his name is invoked.


So, to confirm or confuse what has been bantered above...seedlings of Viburnum x burkwoodii that derived from other Viburnum x burkwoodii pollen can be termed Burkwood viburnums. I would venture that almost every Viburnum x burkwoodii is vegetatively propagated. Whether there is direct lineage back to the seedlings caressed by Messrs. Burkwood and Skipwith is unknown, but most likely true. One might investigate the writings of Dr. Egolf to divine such truths.


OK, I am composed once more.

A V. utile pollinated by another V. utile yields a seedling V. utile, no more. If anyone wants to immerse in more lore Viburnum, let's start a new thread. The color has drained from me.

Scott:

I am not sure this is a natural hybrid, as V. carlesii is a Korean native, and V. utile is from Central China(according to Dirr). I don't know if they overlap. The original cross was done by Burkwood and Skipwith in 1914, introduced in1924, pollinating V. utile with V. carlesii. I am not sure how they name them now, whether Scott's results of the exact same cross would be considered a V. x burkwoodii, or only descendants of that original group? I would think any hydbrid resulting from the same cross would qualify to bear the name. I say that because many more backcrosses of V. x burkwoodii x V. carlesii or x V. utile have been done and progeny still bear the V. x burkwoodii label. I say go ahead and make the cross and introduce V. x burkwoodii "Scott's Woody-i" to the public! Perhaps Resin could chime in on the correct taxonomy.

Scott,

I was thinking of this earlier on in the week but am not familiar about how hybrids react nor their nomenclature. Dirr says that the plant was developed in England by Albert Burkwood and Geoffrey Skipwith in 1914 and introduced in 1924. Not a natural hybrid but stabilized perhaps? I don't even know about the stabilized thing. That sounds like something that the annual seed producers do. I suppose it happens in nature also like A. x freemanii but it isn't a requisite for putting a hybrid label to a plant. When I see V. x burkwoodii from vendors it tends to be pretty much the same looking plant so I have always assumed cutting grown. Park Farm Hybrid, Mohawk, etc all have different looks to them. I would suspect that any crosses of V. utile and V. carlesii would not look quite like what is commonly sold as V. x burkwoodii.

If two species are crossed, then the progeny of these two species (regardless of who or where they are crossed) are called by the name first given to the progeny. Seedlings derived from an uncertain pollen parent should be listed as as open pollinated. I suspect that there are people who do collect seed from hybrids and sell the resulting plants as the hybrid. This isn't the worst thing in the world unless you are a botanist or a extra picky collector. Specific backcrosses to one parent or another would be labeled as such or could end up with an F2 label. That's all have to say about that, o ye of the very cool striped maple!

VV- Am I first on the list for rooted cuttings? J/k :P

Edit- I knew I shouldn't have gotten up to eat while typing this.


Regards,
Ernie

This message was edited Nov 17, 2006 6:28 PM

Thanks all for the input. It mostly reaffirmed what I suspected, but had never formally been taught any of this and I wasn't sure.

One reason for the question is that I just can't seem to find seed without planting it, nor can I find volunteers without pulling them up, putting them in pots, and seeing if I've happened to have lucked upon the next Physocarpus "Diablo." (I want to be rich so bad! Or, at least, I don't want to be poor any longer!) And I have had several V. x burkwoodii look-alikes show up beneath my V. x burkwoodii and I wasn't quite sure A) what to properly call them; and B) how much like their seed parent I could expect them to become. This also raised the question in my mind about how alike all V. x burkwoodiis are in the marketplace. While I own one, have planted several, and have seen many, I haven't seen enough, nor have I seen many all at once and in the same place, which would make comparison easy.

I had intended to find my Dirr manual, or some other such reference, and read up on Burkwoods for an answer, and--failing to find one there--look up V. utile and V. carlesii to see if their ranges overlapped, making a naturalized hybrid at least feasible. Unfortunately, we are rearranging some things at home, and finding my references is not always a sure bet, whereas, you guys are!

Incidentally, I did a quick Google search, and came across the USNA website. I think this is the first time I had perused that site, and it is pretty cool. On the first or second page, VV, was the name "Don Egolf." There is a new Cercis chinensis named in his honor.

I have one more Viburnum question, but I think I'll respect VV's plea and post it in a new thread.

Thanks again all!

Scott

Thank you Kevin and Malusman. I've now checked around a little bit and can't find anywhere the ranges are crossing however the range of Viburnum carlesii may also extend into Japan. Regarding the x placed between the genus and hybrid epithet, I should have stuck to what I originally posted in which I stated I was under the impression x burkwoodii had resulted from a natural hybridization and not drawn the conclusion Viburnum x burkwoodii was naturally occurring based on having worked with naturally occurring hybrids of plants indigenous to NA. V. x burkwoodii is an interspecific hybrid and to the best of my knowledge it was stabilized. Many people do collect seed from open pollinated hybrids and the resulting plants are frequently sold as the named hybrid. I don't think open pollinated seed should be sold as the hybrid but perhaps that is not so important in plants that are being used for ornamental purposes. I really still think that Scott's open pollinated V. x burkwoodii seedlings should be listed as open pollinated or F1's and I also think that any specific backcrosses to an F1 should be labeled F2 and so forth and so on. I love threads like this because they foster exactly the type of discussion that may assist in sorting out the chaos generated by buying or trading plants based on word of mouth naming.

This one is of my crape myrtle "Yuma". The best color of them I have seen so far.

This is a few leaves of Acer barbatum (if it's still called that). It is more of a copper/red color.

Escambia,

Nice pic on the Acer barbatum. That is at the top of my wish list, as you know!, for next year. Mail-Order Natives will actually be recieving a very nice order from me in January, I think.

Until a few years ago, when I finally bought and planted one of the hardy USNA crape myrtles, I did not realize how good the fall color can be on these. I suppose these are over-planted down south, and folks may be ho-hummed by them, but up here these are great new 4-season additions to our gardens.

It does seem, however, that there is some variation in the quality of fall color between the different cultivars. Is this the case down south, where you see so many more selections?

Scott

There is a variation between them. For some reason the "Yuma" variety that I planted seems to be rare. Most of the common ones that are planted, like "Natchez" and "Tuscarora" have already lost their leaves. I don't remember seeing much color to them, and yes they do get ho hum after a while. I have five of these "Yumas" along my property line and have sworn that will be my limit. I really only like the lavender ones because they make a nice substitute for lilac in the south.

As far as the Acer barbatum, as long as it gets some shade it will grow as fast as Acer rubrum. Full sun seems to scorch them and slow them down a bit, at least in the deep south. I'm still curious about the mature size. Most reports say 40ft, but I have heard of 100ft.

Here is a "Natchez" I spotted today.