A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Cantua buxifolia Juss.

Modern name

Cantua buxifolia Juss. ex Lam.

Synonyms

C. dependents Pers.

An evergreen shrub of bushy habit growing 6 to 15 ft high in a wild state, all the parts more or less downy. The leaves are very variable in shape; on the leafy shoots they are 1 to 2 in. long, deeply lobed at the sides, dull green. On the flowering shoots they change to a much smaller size and become entire, box­like, and 12 to 34 in. long. The blossoms come in pendulous clusters of four to eight at the end of the shoot. Flowers 3 in. long, the long tubular base bright rose, with streaks of a darker hue; at the mouth are five spreading lobes, rich red and giving a diameter of 1 to 112 in.; they open in April and May. Bot. Mag., t. 4582.

This gorgeous shrub is a native of the Peruvian Andes and in most parts of the country requires greenhouse conditions. In the extreme south and west it can, however, be grown on a wall. I remember to have seen it in Lord St Leven’s garden on St Michael’s Mount and at Tregye in Cornwall. It is very well worth trying in any likely place. A wall of 6 to 8 ft high would suit it.



Footnotes

Reprinted from W. J. Bean, Wall Shrubs and Hardy Climbers, 1951, by kind permission of the publishers, Messras Putnam.

Genus

Cantua

Other species in the genus

[No species article available]