If you give a child a piece of paper and a box of crayons and ask the tyke to draw a happy picture that includes the sun, our star will be of course rendered in yellow. If you asked an adult person to depict an old hag suffering from jaundice, the yellow crayon would be used for that too. Yellow was used in the past to describe negroes with light skin, and before that (since 1787) for the skin-color of Asiatics. Believe me, I have scrutinized every inch of my wife's beautiful Japanese body but I discern nothing “yellow” thereon. I don't know how to describe her “color,” except that it beats the hell out of the pasty skin of most Americans and half of you Europeans too, but it is absolutely not yellow.
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| Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' |
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| Lascaux painting |
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| Vincent van Gogh - Lausanne Sunflowers |
Hamamelis 'Boskoop'
The word yellow comes from Old
English geolwe and that from Proto-Germanic gelwaz. The
Scots say yella, the east and west Frisians jeel and
giel, the Dutch geel, the Germans gelb and the
Swedes gul. In any case the color is abundant in horticulture,
both with plant foliage and in flower color. Today we'll examine the
latter – yellow flowers – and that's prompted because at this
time my Hamamelis are blooming profusely. Even the cultivar that I
forgot I had, Hamamelis 'Boskoop', is showing off from across the
landscape. This Dutch selection is described by Esveld Nursery of
Boskoop: “De bloemkleur is geel. Deze plant is zeer winterhard.
De bloeiperiode is januari-februari.” Wow! – We're all
suddenly fluent in Dutch, and wasn't that easy?
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| Hamamelis intermedia 'Sunburst' |
Hamamelis intermedia 'Angelly'
'Boskoop' is considered to be a member
of the vernalis species and not in the x intermedia (H.
japonica x H. mollis) tribe, like my other Hamamelis currently in
flower. It is commonly known as the “Ozark witch hazel” and is
native to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. (Natives of Missouri love
to tell you that they're from the state of misery, ha, ha,
ha). Anyway the specific name vernalis refers to the fact that
it blooms in the spring, but that was a poor name because
we're still in the dead of winter. The generic name Hamamelis
is from the Greek words hama meaning “at the same time”
and melon meaning “apple or fruit” because the flower and
the older fruits occur at the same time. I grow a few other
yellow-bellied witch hazels, but I have discontinued the passé old
'Arnold Promise' in favor of the more clear and bright 'Sunburst' and
'Angelly'. Wonderfully, 'Sunburst' is early to bloom, and then when
it begins to decline 'Angelly' bursts forth. Sadly these “hazels”
can be bypassed in the garden center at the main buying time
(April-May) because they have finished blooming, but remember that
they, like all members of the Hamamelidaceae family, offer fantastic
yellow, orange, red and purple fall foliage color.
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| Helianthus annuus |
Nothing bespeaks the color yellow more
than the “sunflower,” Helianthus annuus. The beautiful name is
derived from the Greek Helios for “sun” and anthos
for “flower,” and the genus of seventy-or-so species is placed in
the Asteraceae family. These wonderful creatures produce rounded
terminal capitulas (flower heads) with stunning yellow ray
florets. The flowers are certainly sun-like in appearance, but the
notion that they track the sun across the sky was found false by the
English botanist John Gerard. He grew sunflowers in his herbal garden
and wrote in 1597: “Some have reported it to turn with the Sun, the
which I could never observe, although I have endeavored to find out
the truth of it.” Actually the immature flower buds follow the sun,
but at maturity they all face east. Me too – I don't like looking
into the afternoon sun. It is believed that the first domesticated
sunflower occurred in Mexico around 2600 B.C., and naturally it was a
symbol of sun worship for native peoples.
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| Fritillaria pudica |
While the sunflowers are bold and
brash, the cute little Fritillaria pudica blooms with a nodding head,
and indeed the specific name is Latin for “shy.”* The generic
name is due to the Latin term for a “dice box” – fritillus
– because of the checkered pattern of the flowers in some species.
Many species are poisonous, but F. pudica is edible if prepared
correctly, and it was eaten by Native Americans of the Pacific
Northwest. My favorite place to see it is at Catherine Creek at the
dryer eastern-end of the Columbia River Gorge, and I've never tried
growing it at the nursery because I don't think our conditions would
be suitable.
*The flowers are hermaphrodite –
they have both male and female parts.
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| Lindera obtusiloba |
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| Lindera obtusiloba |
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| Cornus mas 'Variegata' |
Soon our Lindera obtusiloba and Cornus
mas will both be in flower, and annually I cut a twig from each to
quiz as many people as possible about their identity. Over the years
I find fewer people willing to play my game. I get comments like,
“Yeah, yeah – we did this last year, remember?” Both bloom
precociously (before the leaves appear) but Lindera is in the
Lauraceae family while Cornus mas is of course in the Cornaceae
family. The dogwood produces red drupes which are edible, but you
need to wait for them to fully ripen by falling from the tree, and
even then they're not so great. C. mas has a heavy wood and like me
it sinks in water. Since ancient times Greeks made weapons like
spears and bows, and craftsmen considered it to be the best of all
wood. Lindera obtusiloba is native to Japan, Korea and China and it
features sassafras-like glossy aromatic leaves. I have a 35-year-old
specimen in the Display Garden and its golden moment occurs in autumn
without fail; the butter-yellow leaves are as dependable and
brilliant as any Ginkgo. Lindera are dioecious with male and female
flowers on separate trees and mine is a male. We used to root L.
obtusiloba, but at no size was it very popular with our customers.
I'm not on a mission to convert anyone to any plant, but if I was I
might start with this wonderful spicebush.
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| Daphne jezoensis |
Daphne jezoensis can be found in a few
collectors' gardens but the Japanese species certainly is not
widespread. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) it is a very
dwarf shrub and 2) it goes dormant (deciduous) in summer. When I
acquired my one bush about 30 years ago I was certain that it had
died. I was so busy then taking care of my living plants that I had
no time to pull the Daphne out; and behold, later that year it was
resurrected. Today it is blooming, but it's cold and nasty out so
I'll have to wait for a sunny day for the pleasant odour. My bush was
planted in the Waterfall section behind some large X. nootkatensis
'Pendula' – kind of in a hidden area – and I'm glad that it's not
more visible because it has always been rather scrappy. The
Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs reveals that D. jezoensis was
introduced in about 1960 and won an Award of Merit in 1985, so it's
likely that British growers have more success with it than I do. The
Daphne was first described by Carl Maximowicz a hundred years
previous so I don't know why it took so long for its introduction.
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| Ainu people |
The meaning of the word jezoensis is for that which
comes from jezo (or yezo), for lands to the north of Honshu. So
it included Hokkaido and other lands such as Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
Hokkaido's name was changed from Ezo in 1869, and Ezo can also
refer to the people – as it means “foreigner” – which are known as the Ainu
people. Ainu means “human,” but they have been given short shrift by the
Japanese throughout history. It is estimated that fewer than 100 speakers of
the language remain, but one of their legends tells that the Ainu lived in
their place a hundred thousand years before the “Children of the Sun” came.
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| Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Gold Rush' |
Edgeworthia chrysantha is related to
Daphne in the Thymelaeaceae family. I once saw a 12' tall and wide
specimen in the Himalayan foothills at about 9,000'. It was in an
open pasture next to a village so apparently the goats leave it
alone. It is commonly called the “Oriental paperbush” or
“Mitsumata” in Japan. Mitsumata is used for banknotes because of
the paper's durability among other uses. The genus name (by Lindley)
honors Michael Edgeworth (1812-1881), an Irish-born amateur botanist
who worked for the East India Company. There is a red-flowered form
of E. chrysantha, 'Red Dragon' that I have grown for several years,
but before I could acquire it I asked Kelly at Far Reaches Farms if
he had the red-flower form of Edgeworthia. He strode off
energetically to another greenhouse and returned and handed me a
Rhododendron edgeworthia...which also flowers red. I kept my mouth
shut and accepted the Rhododendron, and I was delighted for a few
years with its flower color and deep fragrance, but sadly it perished
in a cold winter. For a golden-flowered Edgeworthia cultivar, we
produce 'Gold Rush', although it doesn't appear much different from
the type. Our plants are grown in the greenhouse and they'll be
blooming in a week or two, and when they are in flower on a sunny day
you can smell them 100' away from the greenhouse door, in a house
known as our “French” house.
Rhododendron macabeanum
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| Rhododendron macabeanum |
There are quite a number of
Rhododendron species and hybrids with yellow flowers. I like R.
macabeanum, a tree-like species with large shiny leaves and a purple
blotch inside the yellow blossom. It is hardy in Oregon, but barely,
and I have had some damage on my old specimen after a brutal winter.
It was planted in a cold pocket at the bottom of the nursery, so I
dug it up a couple of years ago to recover in a greenhouse. This
spring it will be shipped to Flora Farm where I can site it in the
shade of some large conifers. No wonder it's not very hardy as it is
native to Assam and the very northeast of India in Manipur.* Frank
Kingdon-Ward introduced R. macabeanum (1928), but to get to
Rhododendron country he had to slog through swamps with leeches and
mosquitos, and encountered tribal people with uncertain intentions.
The specific epithet honors Mr. McCabe who was Deputy Commissioner
for the Naga Hills, Assam and Manipur. I don't know if McCabe was
botanically inclined or if he just assisted Kingdon-Ward in his
travels.
*Even though I hate horses, Manipur
is credited with introducing polo to Europeans.
Corylopsis spicata 'Golden Spring'
The Corylopsis genus consists of
several species and they are collectively known as “winterhazels.”
The leaves are hazel-like, but the more common hazel is Corylus in
the Betulaceae family while Corylopsis is in the Hamamelidaceae
family. One of the common Corylopsis species found in horticulture is
spicata, introduced by Robert Fortune from its native Japan in
1860, and I'm partial to the cultivar 'Golden Spring' which displays
rich yellow leaves. I don't know if it has a Japanese name – it
should – because it originated from the Yamaguchi Nursery in about
1990. We root 'Golden Spring' from softwood cuttings in June under
mist, and within three years they become salable in 1 gallon pots.
They do require PM shade in Oregon or the leaves will burn, but if
grown in deep shade the leaves will be light green. All of the
Corylopsis species bloom (before the leaves appear) in dangling
racemes of light yellow flowers, but even if 'Golden Spring' never
bloomed it would still be worth growing.
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| Pleione x confusa 'Golden Gate' |
I have had Pleione forrestii a couple
of times but always lose it after two or three years. It does have a
reputation to be difficult but it is one of the most beautiful of all
yellow flowers. Fortunately there is a natural hybrid from
northwestern Yunnan, China between forrestii and albiflora
that is not so touchy, and it features light yellow blossoms with a
maroon-red throat. For some reason the hybrid was named P. x
confusa – perhaps the botanists weren't certain if they had a
species different from forrestii or not. We grow the cultivar 'Golden
Gate', but I don't see how it differs from the type. I suppose it's
like with maples - everybody wants to name something, and who knows?
– maybe it was bred in San Francisco. The earliest use of the name
Pleione in horticulture was from John Lindley (1799-1865) who
was both a botanist and a horticulturist, a rare combination. The
word is ultimately Greek – perhaps meaning “to sail” – and is
the name of the mother of the Pleiades.
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| Spartium junceum |
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| Spartium junceum |
I'll finish my praise of yellow flowers
with the bombastic Spartium junceum, a sweet-smelling pea broom; and
I'd like to acquire it again after losing my (supposedly) zone 7
plants a few winters ago. Only two are shown above, but three of them
lined the eastern border at Flora Farm. All three turned brown when
we reached 85 degrees F on an April day, so I guess they had been
already dead for a few months. Spartium junceum is a monotypic genus
from the Mediterranean regions and it is commonly called “Spanish
broom.” I am not a fan of Cytisus at all, though I can tolerate
Genista – both relatives to Spartium – but I always considered
the Spanish broom to be a fun plant. The name spartium is from
Greek spartos meaning “broom,” and the junceum name
is due to resemblance to the Juncus genus commonly known as rushes.
It was Linnaeus who bestowed the name.
This was just a broad sampling of
yellow flowers that I have encountered, though I have admitted that
some of the plants are no longer with me. Maybe in the future I can
do blue, white, red etc., for horticulture is fecund with color.
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