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Ceanothus × veitchianus Hook.

Modern name

Ceanothus × veitchianus Hook.

An evergreen shrub 10 ft or more high, with green glossy leaves, which are obovate, wedge-shaped, rounded at the apex, glandular toothed, greyish beneath. Flowers in dense heads 1 to 2 in. long, bright deep blue. This plant was originally introduced from California by W. Lobb about 1853. It does not appear to have been found wild since, and is of somewhat uncertain relationship. It has been suggested that it is a hybrid between C. thyrsiflorus or griseus and some other species, probably rigidus; the pinnate veins of the leaf and the greyish under-surface support this view. There is often a suggestion of the triple nerves of C. thyrsiflorus at the base of the leaf. The identity of the plant is also clouded by Hooker’s original description in the Botanical Magazine, t. 5127, which alludes to the branchlets as ‘glabrous’; in his Latin diagnosis the ultimate ones are said to be downy as in his type specimen. It is fairly common in cultivation and a handsome wall shrub, indeed one of the most beautiful of its race; in the milder parts it is hardy in the open. It is all too often grown under an incorrect name – sometimes as “C. dentatus” and often as “C. dentatus floribundus”. To add to the confusion, some plants grown as “C. veitchianus” are really C. × lobbianus.


Genus

Ceanothus

Other species in the genus