Asian Garden: Melliodendron xylocarpum

[Daniel Mosquin]

UBC Accession #33451-0539-1997
Photo by Daniel Mosquin
April 16, 2004

A frustrating plant to try and capture - the flowers hang down from the branches.

[Daniel Mosquin]

Same accession
March 11, 2005
Photos by Daniel Mosquin
Canon 300D

[Ron B]

Flowering more than a month earlier this year.

[bristlecone]

I recently got two Melliodendron from a company in Europe. The flowers look very different from those that I saw on the photos of the UBC Botanical Garden. Please look here. What confuses me even more is that the fruit which developed on one of my plants last autumn (sorry, no photo) looked much like that of Melliodendron (at least what is described as Melliodendron in the Flora of China).

Seems to me that Melliodendron in the UBCBG and in Europe may not be the same plants. In fact, the flower of the UBCBG Melliodendron reminds me of a flower of what is available here as Sinojackia xylocarpa (see, e.g. here .

Does anybody know more about this?

Thanks.

[Daniel Mosquin]

This couplet from the Flora of China Key to Styracaceae confirms for me that what UBC BG has is Melliodendron:

• 6 (5) Flowers solitary or 2 together; filaments of equal length -- 6 Melliodendron
• + Flowers in racemes, panicles, or thyrses; filaments 5 long and 5 short or subequal (sometimes equal in Sinojackia). -- (7)

The flowers from our plants are almost always solitary (and this can be seen in the photographs).

As for what's been sold to you as Melliodendron, it's not. It reminded me on first glance of Pterostyrax, if that's any help.

[bristlecone]

Thank's a lot.
Yes, I also thought that your plant is Melliodendron because of the solitary flowers, and I first also thought that my plant could be a Pterostyrax. However, the fruit on my plant looked completely different than of the Pterostyrax I know.
I wait for autumn to take a photo of the fruit.

[bristlecone]

In the meantime, things have become more clear.

The plants that I have are Pterostyrax, probably Pt. corymbosa.

Some other people here have also tried to find out more and it seems clear now that all plants sold in the Netherlands as Melliodendron actually are not Melliodendron but Pterostyrax. The "real" Melliodendron seems to be present in some nurseries in Belgium and definitively in Ireland. Unfortunately, they don't sell to the continent so there seems to be no chance in the near future to get this plant in Germany.

[Michael F]

Maybe go to Ireland to buy it? Once you have a specimen, in most cases you can then transport it round the EU without problem.

[Paeleman]

You can buy it in Belgium at Damien de Vos. http://www.damiendevos.be/

The nursery is specialised in not-common plants and trees.