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Wikipedia
Aucuba
Aucuba is a genus of three to ten species of flowering plants, now placed in the family Garryaceae, although formerly classified in the Aucubaceae or Cornaceae.
Aucuba species are native to eastern Asia, from the eastern Himalaya east to Japan. The name is a latinization of Japanese Aokiba.[1] They are evergreen shrubs or small trees 2-13 m tall, similar in appearance to the laurels of the genus Laurus, having glossy, leathery leaves, and are among the shrubs, excluding the genuine laurel, Laurus nobilis called "bay", that are mistakenly called laurels in gardens.[2]
The leaves are opposite, broad lanceolate, 8-25 cm long and 2-7 cm broad, with a few large teeth on the margin near the apex of the leaf. Aucubas are dioecious, having separate male and female plants. The flowers are small, 4-8 mm diameter, with four purplish-brown petals; they are produced in clusters of 10-30 in a loose cyme. The fruit is a red berry 1 cm diameter.
- Species
Three species (A. chinensis, A. himalaica, A. japonica) have traditionally been accepted, but the recent Flora of China accepts ten species:
- Aucuba albopunctifolia. Southern China. Shrub to 2-6 m tall.
- Aucuba chinensis. Southern China, Taiwan, Myanmar, northern Vietnam. Shrub to 3-6 m tall.
- Aucuba chlorascens. Southwest China (Yunnan). Shrub to 7 m tall.
- Aucuba confertiflora. Southwest China (Yunnan). Shrub to 4 m tall.
- Aucuba eriobotryifolia. Southwest China (Yunnan). Small tree to 13 m tall.
- Aucuba filicauda. Southern China. Shrub to 4 m tall.
- Aucuba himalaica. Eastern Himalaya, southern China, northern Myanmar. Small tree to 8-10 m tall.
- Aucuba japonica. Southern Japan, southern Korea, Taiwan, southeast China (Zhejiang). Shrub to 4 m tall.
- Aucuba obcordata. Southern China. Shrub to 4 m tall.
- Aucuba robusta. Southern China (Guangxi). Shrub.
Cultivation and uses
A. japonica, introduced into England in 1783 by Philip Miller's pupil John Graeffer, at first as a plant for a heated greenhouse, became widely cultivated as the "Gold Plant" by 19th-century gardeners. The plants being grown were female, and it was a purpose of Robert Fortune's botanizing trip to newly-opened Japan in 1861 to locate a male. It was located in the garden of Dr Hall, resident at Yokohama, and sent to the nursery of Standish & Noble, at Bagshot, Surrey, where the firm's mother plant was fertilized and disploayed, covered with red berries, at Kensington in 1864, creating a sensation that climaxed in 1891 with the statement from the Royal Horticultural Society's secretary, the Rev. W. Wilkes, "You can hardly have too much of it".[3] A reaction to its ubiquitous presence set in after World War II.
Today there are a number of cultivars available from garden centres. The most popular cultivar is 'Variegata', with yellow spots on the leaves;[4] this is a female clone, a similar male clone is named 'Maculata'. It is often referred to as 'Japanese laurel', and 'spotted laurel', and is valued for its colourful evergreen foliage, and large bright red berries
References
- ^ Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and Their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Aucuba".
- ^ "With characteristic perversity, we deny the name of laurel to the only member vof that genus that we cultivate—Lurus nobilis—which we call the Bay, and bestow it on a number of totally unconnected shrubs", observes Alice M. Coats.
- ^ Coats (1964) 1992.
- ^ "...whose measled form is now so common that one hardly realizes that there is also an unspotted Aucuba, which can be quite a handsome bush" (Coats 1992).
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