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Vaccinium duclouxii (Lévl.) Hand.-Mazz.

Modern name

Vaccinium duclouxii (H. Lév.) Hand.-Mazz.

Synonyms

Pieris duclouxii Lévl.; V. forrestii Diels

A deciduous shrub up to 10 ft high; young shoots round, mostly glabrous. Leaves 112 to 312 in. long, 12 to 114 in. wide; ovate-lanceolate, slender-pointed, tapered at the base, glabrous; stalk 18 in. long. Flowers produced in May on the lower side of axillary racemes 1 to 3 in. long; corolla white (either pure or pink tinted), cylindrical, 14 in. long, with five teeth at the narrow mouth; glabrous outside, downy within; calyx-lobes triangular; filaments of stamens hairy. Fruits 15 in. wide, black-purple. Bot. Mag., t. 9658.

Native of W. China, mainly in Yunnan. It was raised by J. C. Williams of Caerhays in Cornwall from seeds collected by Forrest in 1913-14, and the flowering and fruiting sprays portrayed in the Botanical Magazine were sent by him in 1925 and 1932 respectively. But the species has never become established in cultivation and is probably only suited to the milder parts.

V. duclouxii is one of five Chinese species all closely allied to V. donnianum Wight, described in 1848 from the Khasi Hills of Assam. See further in the note by J. R. Sealy accompanying the plate in the Botanical Magazine. V. donnianum is also known as V. sprengelii (Don) Sleum., based on Agapetes sprengelii G. Don (1834), but the identity of the plant described by Don under this name is uncertain.


Genus

Vaccinium

Other species in the genus