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.

Escallonia tucumanensis Hosseus

Modern name

Escallonia tucumanensis Hosseus

A shrub or small tree reported to attain a height of 15 ft in the wild, occasionally 20 ft; young growths reddish, minutely downy or almost glabrous. Leaves oblong or elliptic, rather oblique, shortly acuminate or rounded and mucronate at the apex, tapered at the base into a short petiole, 2 to 3 in. long, 58 to 34 in. wide, glossy above, dotted with blackish glandular pits beneath. Flowers white, borne July and early August in slender panicles, which are leafy at the base, becoming bracteate towards the apex. Calyx-lobes awl-shaped, 18 to 316 in. long. Corollas about 12 in. long, 12 in. wide at the mouth. Disk thin, rising at the centre around the base of the style. Capsule roundish, about 14 in. long. Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 565.

A native of N.W. Argentina at 2,500 to 6,700 ft altitude; introduced to Kew in 1961 by means of seeds collected by Dr F. Vervoorst in Tucuman province. Two examples on the Temperate House Terrace, planted in 1963, have so far suffered no winter-damage apart from some scorching of the foliage, and the species is also cultivated at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, in a sheltered position. It is quite a handsome escallonia but the flowers, although remarkably large for the genus, do not make much display. It is unlikely to be tolerant of salt-laden winds.


Genus

Escallonia

Other species in the genus