2026 – CHW
Creating a new release pen in a new shoot near Newport. The new owner of the land intends to grow cob nuts in rows in arable fields with 10 metre strips of green crop between them. No grey squirrels on the island makes this possible but a long term project with little prospect of a real return. Good for the shoot though.
Visit to Northcourt Manor and a garden tour with John Harrison.
Thickened nodes on Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda.
Hypericum x inodorum growing in Sandy Lane, Seaview. Small flowers which are pale yellow but huge anthers.
A very late wren chick.
2022 – CHW
A day to revisit our 4 surviving Meliosma tenuis (previously M. dilleniifolia subsp. tenuis) The new IDS site for Meliosma is excellent and explains how this genus, which was so messed about when New Trees was first published in 2009 has now been put back straight. The renaming and reclassifications made no sense then and thankfully order has now been restored. M. alba returns to being M. beaniana. Quite how the Mexican species M. alba could be considered as the same as the Chinese M. beaniana beggars belief. M. oldhamii is again a species in its own right.
To recap, we have (or had) plants originally labelled M. dilleniifolia subsp. tenuis, M. dillenifolia subsp. cuneifolia and M. dilleniifolia subsp. flexuosa. The smaller plants of the latter have died since 2020 having been mistakenly planted in full sun. M. cuneifolia was, I thought, true to name when it first flowered (and has died). It had erect and very different flowers. M. flexuosa might have been. As I thought in 2020 all our the surviving plants are probably Meliosma tenuis whatever the labels may have said when purchased (mainly M. dilleniifolia.
Studying the details of the IDS article on M. tenuis the leaves on our plants are toothed and there are tiny axillary hair clusters on the veining and the number of pairs of veins are 10-11 on a developed leaf as advertised. However, the leaf apexes on our specimens do not have the pointed acuminate acumen ( i.e., at the end of the leaves). Nevertheless the flowers are entirely in line with the IDS description so I think the identification is fairly safe.I say ‘fairly’ because the IDS description of the M. flexuosa is a pretty fair match as well to one of our plants but not the other three.The IDS description of M. cuneifolia does not match our 4 plants nor does it seem to match what we had as M. cuneifolia before it flowered and died.The puzzle has therefore not finally been put to bed even after our Meliosma hunt at Tregrehan last week. The return match here next summer promises to be fun.
Here are our 4 plants of M. tenuis (with a slight query)!
(a) Above ‘George Blandford’.
And its leaves close up.
And its leaves close up.
If (d) might be M. cuneifolia rather than M. tenuis it does not really look much like Toms M. cuneifolia in its growth habit or in the size of its leaves as we saw. Frankly the IDS pictures of M. cuneifolia don’t match Toms plant either and there is only one IDS photograph with the text on this species which was taken at Kew.
The north wind has split out an ash tree by Bramble Field Path.
