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Re: Mysteries

Many thanks to Nick for his 'bit of digging'! Very helpful - though,
as usual, the result for the moment is as many new mysteries as
solutions to old ones... So (sorry, Nick!) some more questions:

I looked in the TROPICOS database and in various other places for
Myrciaria dubia. The TROPICOS site didn't list Temu divaricatum among
the 25 (!) synonyms for Myrciaria, though there was a Eugenia
divaricata, and other sites with info. on Myrciaria offered at most a
line drawing - I can't find a pic. anywhere. Do you know of one, Nick?
The line drawing at http://www.rain-tree/camu.htm shows much narrower
and more pointed leaves than those of 'my' shrub and the written
description accompanying the line drawing talks of 'large FEATHERY
leaves' which certainly ain't the case! (unless F/eathery is a typo
for L/eathery??). Ie, I'm interested in pursuing the lead but am for
the moment only HALF convinced. 

Supposing it is Myrciaria, here, for fun, is the information I now
have on it: popular name, Camu Camu; place of origin, swampy places in
Amazonian rainforest; point of interest, light orange-coloured fruit,
with the highest recorded level of Vitamin C on the planet ("the
fruits are popular in Iquitos, Peru, where they are made into drinks
and ice creams"! - ONLY in Iquitos?!). (One of the texts quoted on
Camu Camu is ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin's 1993 Penguin title, "Tales
of a Shaman's Apprentice," which sound interesting: anyone on the list
happen to have read it?)
>
As far as S. chamaecyparissus ssp or var magonica: I can't find any
web site which will give me any further info. about this. All the
obvious places refuse to admit the existence of anything beyond S.
chamaecyp. itself.  It doesn't appear as a ssp or var of chamaecyp. in
any of the written ref. works I have to hand, either. Reasonable to
assume similar levels of hardiness/cultural requirements as those for
the main sp., presumably?

Finally, something more like a full-fledged success. Ok: as Nick says,
Acanthopanax ricinifolium = Kalopanax septemlobus and, in the UK
nursery trade at least, K. s appears still to = K. pictus (or has done
until very recently, though The Plant Finder is now urging K. s. upon
us). Under one or t'other of which names it is indeed available from
half a dozen UK nurseries (mostly specialists in foliage exotics, as
you'd expect). Hillier describes it as a small to medium tree, with
five to seven lobed leaves, as much as 30cms across in young plants.
It has clusters of white flowers in large heads in autumn - oh, and
"scattered stout prickles"! There's also a var. or ssp. maximowiczii
with more deeply lobed leaves. Var (or ssp) magnificus doesn't seem to
be commercially available in the UK. Anyone know what makes it
magnificus? 

(I've just encountered someone on Alpine-L quoting a cry from the
heart by Norm Deno: "There is no such thing as a species." I begin to
know what he means...)





Tim Longville
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