This year’s unusually early, warm spring has produced a couple of unexpected results: early leaf senescence (more on that next time) and bumper crops of fruits on a number of different plants. The mountain ashes (Sorbus), hawthorns (Crataegus), cotoneasters (Cotoneaster) and crabapples (Malus) are standouts in this regard, but this isn’t particularly unusual for those genera to have lots of fruit. More exceptional is the fruit set on viburnums, magnolias and a number of other plants this year.
Magnolia kobus
Magnolias are primarily recognized for their flowers, which are often usually wonderfully fragrant and often noted for their beauty. Magnolia fruits are large and not always attractive in a conventional sense, but they nearly always elicit a response from the public because of their striking colour and unusual shapes. Magnolia flowers are beetle pollinated and the amount of fruit produced is generally related to the availability of pollen from other individuals of the same species (i.e., for cross pollination) as well as warm weather around flowering time. Technically, the fruit of the magnolia is an “aggregate fruit”—a cluster of fruits that are all more or less fused together. Each individual fruit contains a small number of large seeds. As they expand, the seeds create unusual bulges in the fruit cluster. The seeds themselves are covered with an oil-rich coat, usually bright orange or red in colour. Squirrels relish them, but are equally attracted to the red of the aggregate fruit itself, and they harvest these all September long. This year, there are plenty of large, fruit-laden magnolias throughout the David C. Lam Asian Garden. The Carolinian Forest Garden also has its share of magnolias, but most of these are still too young to produce much fruit.
The often highly ornamental fruits of viburnums are popularly known as berries, though they are technically not true berries. The fruits are single-seeded drupes, more akin to the fruits of a cherry or plum (i.e., fleshy, with a bony pit surrounding the seed), and they range in colour from yellow to red and blue. Our two BC native viburnums are Viburnum opulus var. americanum (high-bush cranberry) and V. edule (squash berry). There are examples of the latter in the BC Rainforest Garden, and the former in the Carolian Forest Garden, but their summer-borne fruits may already have been taken by birds. In the Asian Garden there are plenty of viburnums in fruit, but in all cases, fruit production only occurs where there are multiple seedlings of the same species planted together. Good fruiting in Viburnum generally requires cross-pollination.
Perhaps the showiest of the viburnums in the Asian Garden currently is the rarely cultivated V. betulifolium. The birch-leaved viburnum is a normally ungainly deciduous species with 5-m-long arching stems clothed with attractive, but more or less unremarkable leaves. In September, however, the fruits are show-stoppers, as they gradually plump up and darken from yellow to vermillion orange or scarlet, appearing in magnificently opulent clusters that weigh the tall branches down nearly to the ground. When fully ripe, the drupes are glossy to the point of appearing individually waxed and polished. Our best display of this species is along Upper Asian Way above Meyer Glade. These are plants grown from seed originally collected in Sichuan by Asian Garden Curator-Horticulturist Andy Hill.
Meliosma veitchiorum
A group of plants with showy, berry-like fruit that’s often overlooked is Meliosma. The honey-scented flowers, which are individually tiny but borne in huge, dense, fizzy clusters give the genus one of its common names, bubble tree. The other common name, worm-head tree, derives from the overwintering buds, which consist of folded and twisted unexpanded leaves (looking like a bunch of worms). The fruits are usually small, variously coloured drupes, not unlike those of Viburnum. Veitch’s worm-head tree (M. veitchiorum) though, has exceptionally large cherry-sized, reddish drupes. But nearly every part of this western Chinese Meliosma is outsized and bold, from the massive overwintering buds to the enormous walnut-like leaves, the prominent, rounded leaf scars, to the huge, pendulous flower clusters and fruit stalks. There is a sturdy specimen of this species above Upper Asian Way near Rehder Trail. And look for other showy fruits around the Botanical Garden. You’ll be impressed.
More photos of September in the Garden can be found in our Forums.
Submitted by Douglas Justice, Associate Director, Horiculture and Collections, August 29, 2016