Glimpses of magnolia in China

No yellow denudata image – just soulangeanas at Kunming Botanic Gardens

I missed photographing the most interesting magnolia we saw on our recent trip to China. It looked to be a roadside amenity planting of the yellow form of Magnolia denudata. Or it may have been one of the many big tree nurseries we saw. Because we were in a moving entourage of coaches, we couldn’t stop. I can’t think why it never occurred to us to hop into a taxi and return to the site. It is not as if taxis are expensive in China.

As far as we know, the yellow form of denudata is not in New Zealand, though it would be legal to bring it in because the species is already here. We first heard about it – but did not see it – in Italy about 10 years ago but we didn’t get too excited because we figured it was probably more cream than yellow. I think I did a search on it at the time and found Magnolia denudata ‘Fei Huang’ or ‘Yellow River’ widely available in Europe with assorted photos showing colour from cream through to bright yellow, but the authoritative sources leaned to describing it as cream with pale yellow tint at best. So we were taken aback by the trees we saw in bloom in China which were indubitably yellow and with a different flower form to the American yellows bred from M. acuminata. We kept enquiring about it as we passed through other areas, but failed to find out more information. It may have been a particularly good form that we were looking at. I just mention this in case anybody happens to be driving along the access road to Longxiadeng Village, which I am pretty sure is where we saw it.

Magnolia campellii at Mount Baotai

We were of course focussed on camellias for this trip. It was the International Camellia Congress after all, but we had hoped to catch some glimpses of magnolias along the way. The M. campbelli at the Forest Administration Station on Baotai Mount was in full bloom but not the best form we have seen of this species.

Tropical Magnolia balansae

Because we were not there to look at magnolias, Mark took solace in the sight of a solitary tropical specimen at the botanical garden in Xishuangbanna. Magnolia balansae (formerly a michelia) is not one we know at all but there are many tropical species that we don’t have in this country and which are therefore of curiosity value only. It was very handsome, was M. balansae, but large. With small flowers.

Professor Sun Weibang, Tony Barnes and moi at Kunming

I was honoured to be taken to meet Professor Sun Weibang at the Kunming Institute of Botany. Alas Mark was back in the hotel room, dying of the plague (a bad bout of the flu, to be accurate) so I was painfully aware that I was deputising for him at that meeting with a world expert on magnolia. We bonded over the magnificent book, Magnolias in Art and Cultivation, discovering a mutual friendship with one of the authors. There are several pages devoted to the Jury hybrids.

The most interesting aspect of my conversation with Professor Sun was his explanation that their focus had moved away from hybridising to conservation. This was demonstrated clearly when I subsequently came across the huge specimen of Magnolia sinica (formerly known as a manglietia). It was surrounded by scaffolding which is there to enable the systematic collection of seed. For this is one of the most endangered magnolia species in the world. There are only somewhere between 10 and 22 plants known in the wild and there is a concerted effort to build stocks for replanting.

Magnolia sinica

The conservation of indigenous plants was a theme that came through repeatedly on this trip to China. We were not in a position to work out whether the efforts in the field match the official talk, but there is certainly a high level of awareness and public funding being made available for this officially sanctioned priority. It made us think about the quaintly imperialist attitude that sees some in the West thinking that we can preserve the world’s flora. Unless it is a massive project such as the international seed bank at Kew, I think we may over-rate our efforts. There are times we wonder whether the ratepayers of Taranaki realise they are paying to conserve rhododendrons while some of our native flora is under extreme threat. And, frankly, one of this plant here and one of that plant there is not a significant effort in preserving another country’s native flora. This is not to deride the importance of maintaining genetic diversity but the maintenance of indigenous species is surely best supported in their country of origin, where possible.

Random michelia at Kunming. Not, as suggested, M. laevifolia, I think.

Stumperies – an ecological option

Our Rimu Avenue with its informal raised beds which are essentially a stumpery

Stumperies are a thing, overseas if not so much in New Zealand. After all, Prince Charles has one at Highgrove. So has Wisley, the Royal Horticulture Society’s flagship gardens. Indeed, many of the best gardens have a stumpery. The first deliberate construction of old tree roots and stumps is attributed to Biddulph Grange in Britain, where the keen owner wanted to display his fern collection but other shade gardens through history must have had incidental stumperies. They are hailed these days as ecological havens.

When you think about it, the stumpery is basically a naturalistic alternative to trendy insect hotels. But instead of being a confined hotel, it is more like an entire estate.

Our stumperies have rather more pragmatic origins than caring for the under-appreciated critters of the garden. In the area we call the rimu avenue, it has evolved over decades. The rimus are so grand and large now that they suck all the goodness and moisture from the ground around them. Our stump and log constructions are a means of getting informal raised beds so we can establish underplantings, including epiphytic plants like vireya rhododendron species and zygocactus, the so-called chain cactus. It adds a lot more interest and gardening potential to have these elevated areas and pockets for planting amongst the tree stumps and trunks.

When we have dug out the stumps of larger plants, these are re-sited to shade areas, sometimes placed upside down so the roots give more visual interest. There they can gently decay, but in the process they add some structure and height to otherwise flat areas dominated by very tall trees.

Allowing nature to create a stumpery – two pine logs left where they fell

The more substantial stumpery efforts come on the other side of the garden where we have venerable old pine trees. As with the rimus, they are up to 140 years old. Unlike the rimus, they lack a good grip below ground and from time to time, one falls. Four plus a gum tree of the same age have done so in recent years. They cause surprisingly little damage when they fall but were we to try and extract the enormous trunks, it would create a swathe of destruction. We do a cleanup of the foliage, the side branches and the prodigious quantities of pine cones but leave the main trunk where it fell and simply work around it, chainsawing back to clear paths where we need to.

A naturally developing ecological haven on fallen poplar logs

When our instant stumpery installations arrive, they are invariably covered in epiphytes – native astelias and collospermums in particular. We thin these if required but basically leave it to nature to colonise these new areas, adding in special plants to add interest. The ferns just arrive. Dendrobium and cymbidium orchids add seasonal colour and settle in readily. Clivias are often happy at the base. Hostas tend to need more soil than is offered in these situations, but rogersias and farfugiums have settled in well. Hippeastrums and scadoxus are bulbs that we find are happy in this environment and common old impatiens seeds down and adds some summer blooms.

A small stumpery (or stumpette) in a narrow, shaded border in Pat and Brian Woods garden in Waitara

You don’t need a large area to establish a stumpery. Many suburban homes will have a dark and narrow back border (usually the home of the wheelie and recycling bins and the garden hose). As long as you have half or metre or more in width and are not scared of wetas, you can bring in a smaller stump or length of tree trunk and start establishing shade loving plants around it. A little shade garden will contribute far more to a healthy eco-system than gravelling or paving and can be genuinely low maintenance. Fewer weeds grow in shade and once plants are established, it becomes a self maintaining system with the falling leaf litter and gently decaying wood feeding the soil. I did pause to wonder if a very small stumpery became stumperesque in style, or maybe a stumpette?

Amusingly, according to the information board on Wisley’s stumpery, “Not everyone appreciates an artistic garden feature. When the Duke of Edinburgh first laid eyes on the Highgrove stumpery, he allegedly turned to Prince Charles and said, ‘When are you going to set fire to this lot?’”

A natural-formed seat in the stumpery at Wisley, though it would look better without the dedication plaque

First published in the May issue of NZ Gardener and reprinted here with their permission.

Plant Collector: Camellia amplexicaulis

Camellia amplexicaulis

We missed the opportunity to buy Camellia amplexicaulis the one time it was offered commercially in New Zealand. That was by Peter Cave, before he closed down his nursery, if my memory serves me right. And when we saw it in China, we were disappointed that we had not picked it up at the time – though at least it is in the country so we should be able to get a scion at some stage.

It is one of the tropical camellias, a relatively recent discovery in Vietnam. We saw it growing outdoors at the botanic gardens* in Foshan, amongst the yellow camellia collection which is similarly tropical. It was reasonably substantial – a handsome, large shrub at maybe 2.5 metres tall. The foliage was striking with huge, lush, textured leaves while the flowers had very thick petals. The information board below said it flowered from summer to autumn and sometimes all year round. This would be because it is a tropical plant from a climate without marked seasonal change. We were viewing blooms in early spring.

Camellia amplexicaulis in bud

At Kunming Botanic Gardens, it was growing in a covered house with the yellow species. Presumably it is too cold in winter for it to be grown outdoors there (Foshan is coastal while Kunming is inland). The buds have a similar tight, round ball form to the yellow species – more on those in an upcoming article.

Whether our mild, temperate climate would suit Camellia amplexicaulis is not certain. We have trouble getting the tropical yellow species to bloom here. But it is such a handsome and interesting camellia that it is worth a try. And if it does flower here, it may bloom outside peak petal blight season and the heavy texture of the blooms means it would not be as prone to weather damage as many other softer textured camellias.

Not quite a forestry institute as we understand it – Foshan

*I refer to the botanic gardens in Foshan though the official itinerary names it as the Institute of Forestry Science. While we associate forestry with commercial production of Pinus radiata in this country, the southern Chinese forests contain many wild camellias and the forestry institutes appear to have a conservation responsibility for indigenous plants.

Postcards of China 3: Food!

Zoucheng Village – the Bai people’s “Eight Bowls of Dishes”

An army may march on its stomach. Tour groups do not march but food becomes extremely important. I was looking forward to the food in China and some of it did not disappoint.

An uninspired photo but my only one of the vege fields at Longxiadeng Village

We saw huge amounts of productive land growing seasonal crops – mostly what we call Asian greens in early spring. I returned home with an almost total lack of photographs of these but that is because we saw them from moving coaches. Around Dali, the plantings were on some of the best land and they remain in small plots. We were told that each individual was entitled to an area of 20 metres by 10 metres and the plots appeared to be a patchwork of those dimensions, worked largely by hand. We did not see mass production or amalgamation of plots, except at one Bai village.

On the long drive to Baotai Mountain, the steep hillsides were terraced and still being worked intensively for food production. It looked like an old painting but alas, the windows of the small coach were so dirty and we were pressing on at speed to keep up with the entourage making photography impossible.

Mark, feeling his own ageing body, took special note of the posture and techniques of the locals working their plots, hoping that he could learn from age-old techniques passed down countless generations of peasant farmers. He was disappointed to see them using their backs as cranes and making all the mistakes that have led to his dodgy back.

Newly-made American friends on the tour commented that they walked back to the hotel in Dali by a back route and passed an area of vegetable growing where, somewhat to their surprise, they were still using night soil as fertiliser. The stench, they said, was indescribable.

Crops growing on a very domestic scale on what appeared to be public land alongside the Mekong River

Down in Jinghong, Mark and I strolled along the Mekong River and were charmed to see that even public spaces like this are utilised by locals to grow produce, albeit in less than ideal conditions. It takes a lot of produce, of course, to feed a population the size of China’s.

We will draw a veil of silence over the hotel food that was served during the Camellia Congress itself. I have never been a fan of hotel food anywhere in the world, and catering for very large groups is always challenging. The most interesting new taste we experienced there were the scales of Lilium brownii which appeared on the salad bar – slightly sweet and crisp and altogether delicious. It would be worth growing as an addition to the diet.

Thai-influenced food down near the southern border in Jinghong – one of the most delicious meals we were served

Allegedly cured goose but it might equally have been cured beef except that we were rarely served beef . With orchid.

It was when we were out and about that the food was a great deal more interesting – usually served at tables of 8 to 10. I like shared meals that are typical throughout much of Asia because it gives the opportunity to try many different dishes and avoids that typically Western envy where the person sitting opposite you always seems to have ordered something that looks more appealing than the dish you ordered. The sheer volume of food was daunting at times, especially when it appeared at lunch and at dinner and I was not alone in wondering what happened to the leftovers. However, in a country where many of the older people will still remember famine, I am sure it wasn’t wasted. I was surprised at the high protein content, especially in relation to the vegetable dishes, though that may have been a reflection of our honoured status. A meal usually involved chicken, duck, pork, somewhat indeterminate cured meats, fish and tofu though the pickings would have been lean for strict vegetarians (especially as the tofu was often part of the fish dish), let alone vegans, though paleos may have been happy.

As a New Zealander, the near total absence of any dairy products was interesting. Even the milk offered with tea or coffee was soy milk as often as UHT from a cow. I am not sure how easy it will be for NZ’s dairy industry to make huge inroads into the Chinese market beyond infant formula when it will involve changing the age-old dietary habits of a nation.

I think it may have been the lack of dairy that had a friend who was on the tour craving what he called “western food”. He later confided that when he took a day off to spend on his own, he found a cheesecake in a shop window and despite an exorbitant price (nearing $NZ 70), he fell upon it and consumed the lot.

Golden camellia tea

I miss my cup of good, strong, fresh coffee in mid-morning more than dairy and didn’t mind how much the coffee cost on the odd occasions when I found it – generally about $NZ 6.50 which was expensive for China. Tea, often green, was routinely served as part of the generous hospitality we were offered on many occasions. The golden camellia tea was a beautiful addition to the tea range.

elephant park (1) Finally a few snippets: If there is one thing I absolutely loathe on purchased fruit, it is the sticky little labels which do not even break down in the compost. I often peel them off in the shop and leave them behind. These apples solved the problems of labels but we have no idea how imprinting the branding on the skins is achieved.

I do not know if children’s Saturday sports matches continue to serve up segments of orange as half time refreshments (this may be a tradition that has died out at Saturday netball, rugby and hockey), but if they do, I feel that we could practice more class in the presentation….

Similarly, the displays of fresh produce in New Zealand can leave a lot to be desired when compared to the care taken with the street stalls that lined a road near Dali.

Kunming (3) Buddha fruit! Not carved. Grown in plastic moulds, the ever-useful internet tells me. There is a labour intensive way of growing a novelty crop. These may be pears. If your curiosity is whetted, there are many images on line including Chairman Mao shaped fruit. Only in China?

Chinese portaloo

Finally, what goes in must come out etc. Not only does food take on new meaning when travelling in a large group. So do loos. This was the immaculately clean Chinese version of the squat portaloo which amused me at the time. While the hotels we stayed at all had Western-styled toilets, the same was not the case when out and about. I did hear a few rueful comments from some of the older women who struggled with their thigh muscles and flexibility in this situation.

Postcards of China 2: Xishuangbanna area

Some things are not what they appear. This is not a dead leaf. It is in fact a butterfly – quite possibly Kallima inachus, also referred to as the orange oakleaf or dead leaf butterfly. We saw butterfly houses at both the Butterfly Spring in Dali and again in Xishuangbanna, though it was a cool spring so we didn’t see any in the wild.

I had thought that the advertisement on NZ television that features what appear to be blue as blue monarch butterflies might have undergone some computer intervention to change the colour, but no – they do exist. Though my perfunctory net search does not suggest they belong to the monarch family.

We must have been very miserable and ill in Singapore airport on the way home (we both went down with a bad bout of flu from China which laid us low for a good fortnight after we got home). I judge how ill we were by the fact that we spent the time in transit in Singapore in the pay-in lounge immediately adjacent to the butterfly house in the airport terminal and neither of us felt like moving. Not even the ephemeral appeal of butterflies was enough to entice us to while away an hour.

Jinghong (10)

As we flew into Xishuangbanna (on Lucky Air – not entirely sure of that branding), I wondered about the huge plantations visible from the air. Something twiggy. Rubber trees! I had not realised they were deciduous. I have always associated commercial rubber production with Malaya but maybe modern Malaysia has found palm oil more lucrative, leaving a substantial gap in the market for entrepreneurial Chinese. In fact the most common tree used for rubber, Hevea brasiliensis, originates from South America around the Amazon.

The Chinese plantings are monoculture on a massive scale and any monoculture brings environmental issues with it. South American leaf blight is a apparently a real threat to the rubber trees of South East Asia but maybe these recent plantings are of more resistant clones. Maybe. We could see evidence of traditional harvesting by tapping with the tins in place to collect the sap. Our local guide informed us that it was a lucrative crop for the plantation owners and it is one that can be grown on the very steep slopes typical of the area.

Jinghong (24) Jinghong is branded as the peacock city – even to light fittings in one area. In the tour of “primitive forest” (I was not entirely sure how primitive it was now that it has been adapted to accommodate tens, nay hundreds of thousands of visitors) there were tethered peacocks. What happens when you cross a pure white with a traditional blue? Why, this interesting combination.

In the days just before digital cameras, we visited Isola Madre on Lake Maggiore in Italy. I much preferred it to the better known Isola Bella. One of my enduring memories (not captured on camera) is of the oh so elegant and refined pure white peacocks perching on the magnificent old stonework. It was the epitome of style.

Peacocks are glorious birds but if you are thinking they would be nice to have in your own garden, do some research first. Any creature that size is going to cause a lot of damage perching on plants and fossicking around. I recall a local gardener who targeted the wedding market telling me she had to get rid of her peacocks. The excrement is so large and abundant, it was an issue for wedding parties, especially the wedding gown trains.

kapok (2) Kapok flowers. Some of us are old enough to remember the days of kapok mattresses and pillows but I doubt that many of us knew that they were stuffed with the fluff from the seed pods of the kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra. However that species has flowers that are considerably less spectacular than the ornamental kapoks. We had seen kapoks used as street plantings in Hue in Vietnam some years ago but they were not in flower.

Since the exotic chorisia has been reclassified as a ceiba, there appear to be about 20 different species of the latter and we didn’t know which one this large flowered orange tree seen in southern China derived from. In our mild conditions in Tikorangi, we can grow some of these tropical trees but not necessarily get them flowering (this is the case with our chorisia, more correctly called Ceiba speciosa these days) although they will bloom in the warmer north of New Zealand.

Finally, I don’t know anything about tropical waterlilies but they made a lovely picture in the expansive pond (maybe a smallish lake) at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanics Garden where we spent a thoroughly delightful morning.

Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Mark and Abbie Jury

Glimpses of magnolia in China

Stumperies – an ecological option

Plant Collector: Camellia amplexicaulis

Postcards of China 3: Food!

Postcards of China 2: Xishuangbanna area

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: