Euschapis japonica –

 Flowers: Inconspicuous, creamy-white flowers in late spring.

Foliage: alternate, simple, glossy, and pointed.

Fruit: Showy pink to hot-red fruits (dehiscent follicles) open to expose 2 – 5 blue-black seed.

Exposure: Performs best in full sun to part shade.

Water: Medium.  Water well when young; drought resistant once well established.

Habit: Fifteen to 20 feet high with slightly less spread.

Uses: Specimen, informal hedge, mixed borders, screen.

Now here’s a small tree with great character. JC Raulston heavily promoted this tree in the 1980s.  Key features include a strikingly striated bark, a pink to red fruit display that stands out against the glossy green foliage, one that lasts from the end of summer until the first heavy frosts in early winter in Zone 7 – 8.  The tree makes a statement; The foliage is neat and tiered; the tree delivers a positive impact, particularly if trees are growing under full sun.  While tolerant of part shade, the species achieves greates folige density and the best fruit show in full sun.  Performance is improved in slightly acid soils and the species tolerates wet to dry conditions, clay to sand.

A member of Staphylaceae, Euschapis japonica is the sole species in the genus. Native to China, Japan and Korea, the species performs admirably in Zones 7 to 9.  The SFA Mast Arboretum’s first trees were three clones collected by the 1985 National Arboretum Korean expedition and one clone through Clifford Park of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his work in China.  All have survived well and given us years of experience with seed and cutting propagation.

Branches are glabrous; shoots are stout and pithy, with uniquely striated bark (white webbing on a purple background)  .

Propagation remains complex and seedling growth is slow in the first year. Seeds require a double dormancy; that is, a period cold-moist stratification, followed by warm, moist, and then followed by cold-moist, with three to four months at each stage.  One grower said he normally carries flats of seed in a shade house for two winters and gets good results.  In another story, one batch of seed accidentally left for over a year in the cooler germinated at a high percentage.  At any rate, growers are encouraged to experiment; the tree is worth the effort.   We have had some problem with damping off of seedlings and while some report that seedlings should not be removed or transplanted until they have overwintered in the flat, we have had success transplanting at the one inch stage right out of the seedling flats – if done carefully.  Container plants respond to heavy fertilization.  Asexual propagation is less understood.  While we have rooted the species (50% of hardwood cuttings stuck 1/22/99 rooted within four months with an initial 2500 PPM K-IBA dip).  Again, further experimentation is warranted.  Second year growth in the container is vigorous with young plants reaching three to four feet easily.

If you’re a plant enthusiast, this is not unlike many other travelogues you’ve encountered here and there. Cool trip.  It’s a faraway place.  Yes, there are amazing plants, botany, and people involved.  What’s different about this story is a very old man.  Let me explain.

Yufeng lamasery is nestled on a pine and mixed forest alpine hillside NW of Lijiang in Yunnan province.  What a magical,  quiet and lonely place this is!  This lamasery was built at the end of the Qing dynasty in the traditional Chinese courtyard design.  Essentially a combination of the architectural styles of Tibetan and Han Buddhism, Taoism and the local Naxi Dongba ethnic group, the Yufeng temple, surrounding grounds, and local citizens make this a very ethereal spot on earth.  The “camellia of ten thousand flowers” was planted in the years of the Chenghua Ming Dynasty, and is thought to have been planted between 1465 to 1487 (there are conflicting ideas here) – anyway, it’s well before the construction of Yufeng temple.   The lamasery is one of the Scarlet Sect lamaseries of Lijiang and lies about ten miles North West of the city at the southern foot Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

This is one of many lonely lamaseries in the alpine highlands of the eastern Himalayas. When we arrived at the base of the lamasery, we were greeted by a short line of stalls with ladies hawking traditional Chinese Arts and crafts.  We were the sole visitors that morning (August 30, 2009) and we soon learned that the Naxi are an independent sort.  According to my Chinese colleagues, they have refused to pay the bribes to Lijiang tourist bus companies and the small row of stalls was now paying a price – no visitors, no customers.

The Naxi are a matriarchal society, and traditionally the women run the show, owning property, running the business, managing the financial resources and taking the lead on all matters family and work.  Hey, that sounds like America!  Just joking.  The men, I was told, spend most of their time “reading, cooking, taking care of children, and hoping not to be turned out by his woman for another man.”  That doesn’t sound like America.  The grounds of Yufeng lamasery are home to several ancient trees, including a pleached 150 year old Michelia yunnanensis and an ancient Magnolia delavayi, both fine specimens in their own right.

As for the camellia, it’s an amazing courtyard tree, trunks and branches twisted together to cover an arbor creating about 600 m² (ft²) of shade.  Off in the corner, I noticed a quiet and demure llama of 93 years sitting quietly on the porch and keeping a watchful eye on our activity.  I learned that he had taken care of the tree for over forty years, and sure enough, under the eaves of the temple were old faded photographs of him as a younger man sitting in front of the tree in full bloom.  While we didn’t find a single bloom on our day to visit, the form and character of the tree left me more or less speechless.  There really wasn’t much to say.  The tree is spiritual.  It reportedly blooms two colors for over one hundred days, and is thought to be comprised of two grafts, a combination of the trunks and branches of the lionhead camellia and Camellia reticulata, both indigenous to the  mixed mountain forest in western and central Yunnan (Jinhu, 1996).  Lion’s head is the most popular cultivated variety among the Yunnan camellias and is often listed as C. hiemalis ‘Shishigashira’ – while others list the plant as C. sasanqua.  I’m not totally sure of this plant’s exact ancient heritage but it’s known to grow fast, grow tall, and be tough as nails.  Most of the 100-year old camellias in the Yunnan are lion’s head.  Lion’s Head flowers are colorful and grow in circles, four or five petals to a circle with about 30 petals total while C. reticulata blooms are smaller and white to pink to rose.  One Chinese source referred to the tree with this award-winning prose, “with the irradiation of the brilliant sunglow and the contrast of the green grassland, the flowering tree looks like burning flames from beyond. It is the real ‘King of the Camellia Trees’.”  Well said.

As we drove away, I kept thinking, “I need to get back here when it’s in bloom.”  For some reason, I felt that old lama will still be tending to the tree and ready to greet us with his quiet charm.  So the next time you’re rummaging around in the garden or in the nursery and you run across a ‘Shishigashira’ or a Yunnan camellia or two, think of the far away high mountains and forests of western China that make up the original home of camellias.

Jinhu, Pang, Feg Zhizhou, Zhu Baohua and Guo Siqin. Camellias of China.  1996. Compiled by the Yunnan Academy of Forestry Science, China Esperanto Press, 160 pp. ISBN: 7-5052-0259-6/J.22