2016 – CHW
The seed picture quest continues. What is by now clear is that not only is this a very poor magnolia seeding year but it is also a poor seeding year for many types of plants including camellias and a lot of rhododendrons. Styrax seem to be the exception and are all laden with, as yet unripe, spherical seed pods. Staphylea colchica has ‘bladder nuts’ which have ‘burst’ (ie the pods have deflated) and are ready to gather.

Staphylea trifoliata has pods which have turned red like its leaves. These too are ready to gather.

Styrax serrulatus has seeds which are green and only half swollen.

Styrax hemsleyanus which has individual flowers rather than flower clusters is similarly ‘unready’.

Corylopsis spicata has a few unripe seed spikes.

Conversely formerly pink Magnolia sieboldii seed pods are losing their colour and shedding orange seed fast.

Acer palmatum ‘Osakasuki’ seed is turning from reddish to brown and is very nearly ripe.

Rhododendron polyandron has seed pods which are browning and very nearly collectable.

Lithocarpus pachyphyllus (an evergreen oak) with a large viable ripe oak seed.

Lithocarpus pachyphyllus (an evergreen oak) with a cluster of small and totally unviable and useless acorns even though they are ripe.

Quercus myrsinifolia has very tiny acorn clusters. They certainly are not ripe and I do not think they will now ever swell or develop properly.

Rhododendron megacalyx has swelling seed heads but they are still far from ripe. One we must collect and propagate this year.

Nearly ripe Camellia sasanqua seed. Three seeds only on this plant and none on the seven others in this group unless Asia has picked already?

Magnolia cylindrica seedpods are ripening well but not yet quite shedding their seeds. You could probably risk picking them (as I have) and ripening them on in the greenhouse.

Enkianthus cernuus rubens is plastered in small seed which are still far from ripe. I wonder if they ever will be. Perhaps the old plant has tried but has not the energy to complete the process.

2015 – CHWJust missed the autumn colour on Cercidiphyllum japonicum ‘Strawberry’ which is really a spring show rather than an autumn one but not bad at all.

Nearby is a good young plant of Podocarpus acutifolius which has a strange flattening of some of its stems rather like Salix udensis ‘Selika’ or Cryptomeria ‘Sekkansugi’. I have never seen this before in a podocarpus and wonder if it is an abnormality or not? Quite attractive but I cannot remember the specific name for this feature other than ‘flattened stems’.