Re: Vallea-dictory

Einion,
 
We acquired Vallea stipularis about 7 years ago from none other than the greatly missed nursery you cite: Greenways. I've always understood it to be a monotypic genus from Bolivia so I'm unsure whether all the forms available are wildly different. To us it behaves as a slender growing partly evergreen shrub that relies on the help of a nearby, and fellow South American,  Luma apiculata for support. It seems rather ungainly as a shrub to my eye, although Hilliers Manual reckons on it making a tree. Growing it against a wall seems to be the best advice (and about all I've found) on its cultivation. It finished flowering a week or so ago here, displaying the pink flowers you describe and I'm comfortable with the idea of growing it through something else as it probably needs the foil of an evergreen to highlight the flowers more clearly. Frost-wise I'm unsure of its tolerance as we haven't had the chance of a real test for a while now (sorry to rub it in) but a nearby neighbour has grown it in a sheltered spot for at least the last decade, so I'm sure it probably encountered something akin to -3 to -4C in that period as a one off. If you'd like some plant material I'll endeavour to take a few cuttings.
 
regards, Mark.
----- Original Message -----
From: E*@aol.com
To: m*@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 7:33 AM
Subject: 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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