Davidia involucrata

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Davidia involucrata
Davidia involucrata flowering branch.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Cornales
Family: Nyssaceae
Genus: Davidia
Baill.
Species:
D. involucrata
Binomial name
Davidia involucrata
Synonyms

Davidia laeta

Davidia fruits (MHNT) Davidia involucrata MHNT.BOT.2010.4.4.jpg
Davidia fruits (MHNT)

Davidia involucrata, the dove-tree, [1] handkerchief tree, pocket handkerchief tree, or ghost tree, is a medium-sized deciduous tree in the family Nyssaceae. [2] It is the only living species in the genus Davidia. It was previously included with tupelos in the dogwood family, Cornaceae. [3] Fossil species are known extending into the Upper Cretaceous.

Taxonomy

Davidia involucrata is the only member of its genus, but there are two varieties differing slightly in their leaves, D. involucrata var. involucrata, which has the leaves thinly pubescent (short-haired) on the underside, and D. involucrata var. vilmoriniana, with glabrous (hairless) leaves. [4] Some botanists treat them as distinct species, with good reason, as the two taxa have differing chromosome numbers so are unable to produce fertile hybrid offspring.[ citation needed ]

Description

It is a moderately fast-growing tree, growing to 20–25 m (66–82 ft) in height, with toothed, alternate, ovate-cordate leaves resembling those of a linden, except that they are symmetrical, and lack the lop-sided base typical of linden leaves; the leaves are mostly 10–20 cm long and 7–15 cm wide.

Davidia involucrata is best known for its inflorescence that features large, white bracts surrounding a purplish-red flower head. The Latin specific epithet involucrata means "with a ring of bracts surrounding several flowers". [5] The true flowers form a tight head about 1–2 cm across, each flower head with a pair of large (12–25 cm), pure white bracts at the base, performing the function of petals in attracting pollinators. The inflorescences hang in long rows beneath the horizontal branches, and appear prolifically in late spring. On a breezy day, the bracts flutter in the wind like white doves or pinched handkerchiefs; hence the English names for this tree.

The fruit is a very hard nut about 3 cm long surrounded by a green husk about 4 cm long by 3 cm wide, hanging on a 10 cm stalk. The nut contains 3–6 seeds.

Distribution and habitat

Davidiainvolucrata is native to South Central and Southeast China. It grows in montane mixed forests. [6]

History

The genus Davidia is named for Father Armand David (1826–1900; "Père David"), a French Vincentian missionary and keen naturalist who lived in China. David first described the tree in 1869 as a single tree found at over 2,000 m (6,562 ft) altitude, and sent dried specimens to Paris; in 1871, Henri Baillon described it as a new genus and species. [7] [8]

British plant hunter Augustine Henry again found a single tree, this time in the Yangtse Ichang gorges and sent the first specimen to Kew Gardens. Plant collector Ernest Henry Wilson was employed by Sir Harry Veitch to find Henry's tree but arrived to find that it had been felled for building purposes; however, he later found a grove of the trees overhanging a sheer drop. [9] Returning to Britain, Wilson’s boat was wrecked, but he managed to save his Davidia specimens, [10] one of which survives today in the Arnold Arboretum. [11]

Fossil record

The oldest probable fossils of Davidia are permineralized fruits from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Dinosaur Provincial Park near Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. Those fruits are smaller than those of D. involucrata and have fewer locules, but are otherwise similar in morphology to the extant genus. [12]

In 2009, B. I. Pavlyutkin described Miocene fossils in Primorsky Krai and assigned them to a new species in the genus Davidia. [13]

Cultivation

The species was introduced from China to Europe and North America in 1904, and is a popular ornamental tree in parks and larger gardens. Most trees in cultivation are var. vilmoriniana, which has proved much better able to adapt to the climatic conditions in the west.

This tree [14] and the cultivated variety D. involucrata var. vilmoriniana [15] have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. [16]

Related Research Articles

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<i>Koelreuteria paniculata</i> Species of flowering plant

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<i>Ulmus davidiana <span style="font-style:normal;">var.</span> japonica</i> Variety of tree

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<i>Ulmus davidiana</i> Species of tree

Ulmus davidiana, also known as the David elm, or Father David elm, is a small deciduous tree widely distributed across China, Mongolia, Korea, Siberia, and Japan, where it is found in wetlands along streams at elevations of 2000–2300 m (6,500–7,500 ft). The tree was first described in 1873 from the hills north of Beijing, China.

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Webbiana Elm cultivar

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Webbiana', or Webb's curly-leaf elm, distinguished by its unusual leaves that fold upwards longitudinally, was said to have been raised at Lee's Nursery, Hammersmith, London, circa 1868, and was first described in that year in The Gardener's Chronicle and The Florist and Pomologist. It was marketed by the Späth nursery of Berlin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as U. campestris WebbianaHort., and by Louis van Houtte of Ghent as U. campestris crispa (Webbiana). Henry thought 'Webbiana' a form of Cornish Elm, adding that it "seems to be identical with the insufficiently described U. campestris var. concavaefoliaLoudon" – a view repeated by Krüssmann.

The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Rugosa' [:'wrinkled', the leaves], was first listed in Audibert's Tonelle (1817), as "U. campestris Linn. 'Rugosa' = orme d'Avignon [Avignon elm] ", but without description. A description followed in the Revue horticole, 1829. Green (1964) identified this cultivar with one listed by Hartwig and Rümpler in Illustrirtes Gehölzbuch (1875) as Ulmus montana var. rugosaHort.. A cultivar of the same name appeared in Loddiges' catalogue of 1836 and was identified by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838) as Ulmus montana var. rugosaMasters, Masters naming the tree maple-bark elm. Ulmus montana was used at the time both for wych cultivars and for some cultivars of the Ulmus × hollandica group.

The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Myrtifolia', the Myrtle-leaved Elm, first appeared in nursery and horticultural lists from the 1830s, as Ulmus myrtifolia and Ulmus campestris myrtifolia, the name Ulmus myrtifoliaVolxem being used at Kew Gardens from 1880. Lawson's nursery of Edinburgh appears to have been the earliest to list the tree. 'Myrtifolia' was listed by Nicholson in Kew Hand-List Trees & Shrubs (1896), but without description. It was later listed as a cultivar and described by Rehder in 1939 and by Krüssmann in 1962.

<i>Ulmus laciniata <span style="font-style:normal;">var.</span> nikkoensis</i> Variety of tree

Ulmus laciniata var. nikkoensisRehder, the Nikko elm, was discovered as a seedling near Lake Chūzenji, near Nikkō, Japan, and obtained by the Arnold Arboretum in 1905. The taxonomy of the tree remains a matter of contention, and has been considered possibly a hybrid of U. laciniata and U. davidiana var. japonica. However, in crossability experiments at the Arnold Arboretum in the 1970s, U. laciniata, a protogynous species, was found to be incompatible with U. davidiana var. japonica, which is protandrous.

<i>Heptacodium</i> Tree endemic to China (seven-son tree)

Heptacodium miconioides, the seven-son flower, is a species of flowering plant. It is the sole species in the monotypic genus Heptacodium, of the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae. The common name "seven-son flower" is a direct translation of the Standard Chinese name 七子花 qī zi huā.

<i>Cercidiphyllum japonicum</i> Species of tree

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<i>Ulmus pumila</i> Aurescens Elm cultivar

The Ulmus pumila cultivar 'Aurescens' was introduced by Georg Dieck at the National Arboretum, Zöschen, Germany, circa 1885. Dieck grew the tree from seed collected in the Ili valley, Turkestan by the lawyer and amateur naturalist Vladislav E. Niedzwiecki while in exile there. Dieck originally named the tree U. pinnato-ramosaf.aurescens.

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Viminalis Betulaefolia' (:'birch-leaved') is an elm tree of uncertain origin. An U. betulaefolia was listed by Loddiges of Hackney, London, in the catalogue of 1836, an U. campestris var. betulaefolia by Loudon in Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum (1838), and an U. betulifoliaBooth by the Lawson nursery of Edinburgh. Henry described an U. campestris var. betulaefolia at Kew in 1913, obtained from Fulham nurseryman Osborne in 1879, as "scarcely different from var. viminalis ". Melville considered the tree so named at Kew a form of his U. × viminalis, while Bean (1988), describing U. 'Betulaefolia', likewise placed it under U. 'Viminalis' as an apparently allied tree. Loudon and Browne had noted that some forms of 'Viminalis' can be mistaken for a variety of birch. An U. campestris betulaefolia was distributed by Hesse's Nurseries, Weener, Germany, in the 1930s.

<i>Tsukada davidiifolia</i> Extinct species of flowering plant

Tsukada is an extinct genus of flowering plant in the family Nyssaceae related to the modern "dove-tree", Davidia involucrata, containing the single species Tsukada davidiifolia. The genus is known from fossil leaves found in the early Eocene deposits of northern Washington state, United States and a similar aged formation in British Columbia, Canada.

Prunus cyclamina, called the cyclamin cherry, the Chinese flowering cherry, and in Chinese: 襄阳山樱桃, the Xiangyang mountain cherry, is a species of flowering cherry native to China, preferring to grow at 1000–1300 m above sea level. It has prolific, attractive pale pink flowers that bloom early and outlast many later-blooming cherries and, accordingly, excellent potential as an ornamental. In the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts two individuals have prospered for decades, never showing any signs of the typical diseases—including the nematodes, viruses and black knot—that afflict their Prunus neighbors.

References

  1. BSBI List 2007 (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  2. "Davidia involucrata". Germplasm Resources Information Network . Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture . Retrieved 9 January 2017.
  3. "Angiosperm Phylogeny Website - Cornales". Missouri Botanical Garden . Retrieved 28 August 2023.
  4. Haining Qin & Chamlong Phengklai. "Davidia involucrata". Flora of China. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO & Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  5. Harrison, Lorraine (2012). RHS Latin for gardeners. United Kingdom: Mitchell Beazley. p. 224. ISBN   9781845337315.
  6. "Davidia involucrata Baill. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  7. Baillon, Henri (1871). "Davidia involucrata". Adansonia. 10: 115 via Google Books.
  8. "E. H. Wilson's First Trip to China" Archived 29 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine , by William H. Gardener, in Arnoldia, the quarterly journal of the Arnold Arboretum; published May 3, 1972 (vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 103–115; introduction by Gordon P. DeWolf, Jr.
  9. Glasser, Larissa (27 November 2018). "E. H. Wilson's search for Davidia involucrata". Library Leaves - Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  10. "Evolve 360" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
  11. "E. H. Wilson's search for Davidia involucrata". Arnold Arboretum. 27 November 2018. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
  12. "International Organisation of Palaeobotany (IOP) - Davidia - the Dove Tree and its fossil record". Archived from the original on 24 December 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  13. B. I. Pavlyutkin (May 2009), "Leaf and fruit remains of Davidia (Cornales) from the Nezhino flora (Miocene of Primorye)", Paleontological Journal, 43 (3): 339–344, doi:10.1134/S0031030109030137, ISSN   1555-6174, S2CID   83645195
  14. "Davidia involucrata AGM". Royal Horticultural Society. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  15. "RHS Plantfinder - Davidia involucrata var. vilmoriniana" . Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  16. "AGM Plants - Ornamental" (PDF). Royal Horticultural Society. July 2017. p. 29. Retrieved 6 February 2018.