Vallea-dictory

One plant which seems to have only the most tenuous toehold in cultivation in
Britain is the Andean shrub, Vallea stipularis. I first came across it in the
catalogue of a now-defunct nursery in Devon, S.W. England, where its variety
pyrifolia is described as 'a semi-evergreen large shrub, pink flowers in
summer. Quietly beautiful'. I've since come across a reference to it in Jane
Taylor's book 'The Milder Garden', where she says that it is rather sensitive
to frosts, and describes the flowers as having cup-shaped pink petals held in
paler, rose-red veined sepals. It sounds indispensible, but a look in The
Plant Finder shows that, whether in its typical or varietal form, only 3
nurseries in the UK list it & all 3 are, no surprise to residents of the UK,
in Devon & Cornwall. I've never set eyes on this plant, so what I would like
to know is: 1) is it really as beautiful as the descriptions suggest? and 2)
is it more commonly cultivated in places such as California or Australasia,
where it should, in theory at any rate, be a great success?

Einion Hughes,
Rhyl,
increasingly a home to Antipodean plants of all descriptions!
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