Re: Schefflera Schweethearts

Tim,

No, I don't think its a case of us down here in Cornwall pipping you to the
post, more probably something akin to like-minded people operating in
parallel without realising it.

Erm, its more than likely that the indoor Schefflera is, as Hugo suggested,
S. arboricola, I think it was something I dragged out of the glasshouse to
fill a gap left by a particularly attritional winter ages ago and neglected
to make sufficient note of what I was cramming in at the time.

I had a more leisurely look through Thurston today, and for that matter
Arnold-Forster (Trees and Shrubs for the Milder Counties) and couldn't find
any evidence of Schefflera species being grown in these parts. Although you
make the point that collectors pre 1939 were drawn to the more colourful
trophies to be found, such as Rhododendrons, plenty of rather more allegedly
mundane plants from the same regions get a mention in the texts, Distylium
racemosum, a glossy leaved, red flowering member of the Hamamelidaceae from
Japan for instance. I think the answer is probably somewhere within a  case
that certain of these plant species were still breaking off the shackles of
being thought of as 'Stove plants' and were yet to become established in the
thoughts of gardeners of the time, in terms of viability. (then as now, I
guess).

Anyway I'll have a chat with Edward Needham, the second Schefflera grower,
and derive some rather more fulsome details on what species he is actually
growing. One reference to this subject I did find was in a Florida Landscape
Plants handbook (Watkins & Sheehan) where mention is given over too S.
actinophylla. There-in it states that this is for warmer parts of Florida
and requires sun to flower well (counts us in Britland out then)  but one
propagation term interests me: "marcottage", is this what us on the eastern
side of the Atlantic know as air-layering (or even just layering)?.

intrigued,

Mark, St. Mawes, Cornwall.



----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Longville <tim@eddy.u-net.com>
To: <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2001 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: Schefflera Schweethearts


> Mark - Should you known you lot down in Cornwall would have got there
> before me...!
>
> Interesting info., though: thanks - and I'll keep my eyes peeled in
> local garden centres to see if the indoor Schefflera turns up, and if
> it does will certainly try adding it to the Longville mini-jungle.
> (Isn't that indoor Schefflera, as Hugo suggested, S. arboricola? Or is
> there more than one spp sold as an indoor plant in the UK?)
>
> Not only was your cultural info. interesting but so was the info about
> the non-appearance of any spp in Cornish records in the 30s - which
> would seem to tend to support Bleddyn Wynne-Jones's notion that,
> because the Edwardian and inter-war collectors in those regions were
> mostly after rhodos and, a long way second, lilies, there are still
> many exciting possibilities to be tried in UK (and, as you suggest,
> perhaps in N. Calif.) gardens.
>
> >
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