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.

Photinia beauverdiana Schneid.

Modern name

Photinia beauverdiana C.K.Schneid.

A deciduous tree up to 30 ft high, devoid of down in all its parts; young wood purplish brown, marked with very pale lenticels. Leaves lance-shaped to narrowly obovate, long and slenderly pointed, narrowly wedge-shaped at the base, finely and sharply toothed, the teeth frequently tipped with a small dark gland, 112 to 5 in. long, 12 to 134 in. wide, of thin firm texture with some ten or twelve pairs of veins conspicuously raised beneath. Flowers in corymbs 112 to 2 in. wide, terminating short leafy twigs which spring from the previous season’s growth. Each flower is scarcely 12 in. wide, white; petals roundish, tapering to a claw; sepals triangular. Fruits deep red, rather egg-shaped, nearly 14 in. wide.

Native of W. China; discovered by Henry, introduced to the Coombe Wood nursery in 1900 by Wilson, who describes it as a small, slender tree common in woods and copses. It has been cultivated at Kew since its introduction, is quite hardy and bears fruit regularly and usually freely enough to make it quite ornamental. A distinguishing character is the conspicuous veining, almost ribbing, of the leaves beneath. It flowers in May.

There is a specimen at Westonbirt, Glos., 30 ft high, planted in 1933.

var. notabilis (Schneid.) Rehd. & Wils. P. notabilis Schneid. – Easily distinguished from the type by the larger and especially broader leaves, which are up to 5. in. long, and the larger, looser inflorescences 3 to 4 in. wide. Fruits orange-red. Superior to the type. Introduced by Wilson in 1908 from W. Hupeh, where he found it 30 ft high. Award of Merit as a hardy fruiting shrub when shown from Nymans, Sussex, on November 29, 1960.



From the Supplement (Vol. V)

A plant at Singleton Abbey, Swansea, measures 36 × 314 ft (1981). The var. nobilis, at Kew, pl. 1909, is 33 × 214 ft (1981) and there is another example of about the same size in the Winkworth Arboretum, Godalming.

Genus

Photinia

Other species in the genus