Winter Solstice Flowers II

Polyspora (Gordonia) flower and
young Polyspora tree.

Not many trees flower in mid-winter, so the few that do are especially well worth planting. One of these is the tree still being sold in New Zealand garden centres as Gordonia, although it now appears that the Asian species are properly called Polyspora.


(This is good, because when one does a web search on 'Gordonia spp' what comes up first is a gram-positive coryneform bacterium with twelve distinct species, four of which are capable of causing rather nasty diseases in humans. I was somewhat spooked on learning this, since I am currently trying to make sense of the recent outbreak of fatal E.coli cases in Europe. It seems that all my reading now leads to bad bugs, whether I intend it to or not!)

 So let's leave the name Gordonia for the bugs, and call this beautiful tree Polyspora. The genus is mostly from the mountains of East Asia, although there is one North American and one South American species. The one pictured above (planted three months ago) came from the garden centre with a label saying that it was an as yet unidentified species from South Vietnam.  The species P. axillaris, which comes from the hill and mountain forests of southern China and northern Vietnam, is the one most commonly planted and seen in New Zealand. It is a notable tree of the Napier Botanic Gardens, and I have seen it used as a street tree and flowering happily beside the road at the Grey Lynn end of Great North Rd in Auckland. It also does well in Sydney, where the name 'fried egg plant' is used because the flowers have big yellow centres and white surrounds, like fried eggs. Polyspora are in the Theacae (tea) family of trees, which also includes camellias and stewartias. They all like acid soil, and lots of water.

Some camellias also flower in mid-winter, and are well worth planting for the colour they can add to the garden at this time. I have lost the name of the red camellia in the photo below, but it has flowered reliably in June for the past three years. The white camellia is 'Yoimachi'. I also have other white camellias (all unnamed as I got them from a nursery sale) which are coming into flower at present.

The ruffled pink flowers in the photo are from an evergreen azalea, and the bright pink ones are from the gum tree Eucalyptus leucoxylon 'Rosea'. This is a fantastic tree for two reasons. Firstly it covers itself in bright pink flowers in winter, and secondly those flowers are full of nectar which is much appreciated by bellbirds. Like most gum trees it is not fussy about where it grows, but since it can get to be quite big it is best to plant it on a southern boundary, where it can also provide good shelter.

Moving back to Asian winter flower sources, where would the New Zealand winter garden be without wintersweet, Chimonanthes praecox? The flowers are unremarkable (the variety in the photograph below is 'Lutea', which has clear yellow flowers all the way through and no purple centre like the species), but they smell so good they are well worth the room. I have planted several, dotted around the garden among other shrubs, so as be able to catch the fragrance several times on a garden stroll, and also to have spare branches for picking for the house. They are very slow-growing, but eventually get to two metres or more, and their leaves go a nice butter yellow in autumn.

Also deliciously scented are most members of the Daphne genus. White-flowered Daphne bholua, in the photo below, begins flowering in May and goes through winter, while deep pink Daphne odora has its flowers almost ready to open.
I think these are very early this year, as we have had a most unusual June so far, which looks set to be the warmest one on record - around two degrees above average. I do what I can to create the right soil to grow these winter treasures, but everyone needs to urgently put in a lot more effort to save the climate they need to grow in. Check out 350 Aotearoa for what is being done in New Zealand right now, and how to get involved in it.