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Epigaea asiatica Maxim.

Modern name

Epigaea asiatica Maxim.

A low, creeping evergreen shrub a few inches high; young shoots clothed with outstanding, bristle-like, often gland-tipped hairs. Leaves strongly veined, ovate, with a heart-shaped base and an abruptly pointed apex, 112 to 3 in. long, 34 to 134 in. wide, leathery and harsh to the touch, dark dull green above and sprinkled with short stiff bristles when young, paler beneath and bristly on the midrib, margins edged with gland-tipped hairs; stalk 16 to 13 in. long, hairy like the young shoots. Flowers produced in April in terminal or axillary racemes of three to six blossoms, with hairy bracts at the base. Corolla rose-coloured, 12 in. long, tubular to urn-shaped with five shallow, recurved, rounded lobes at the mouth where it measures 14 to 13 in. wide; downy only near the base inside. Calyx segments ovate, membranous, pointed, glabrous or minutely downy, 14 in. long. Stamens short, hairy at the base; style stout, shorter than the stamens; flower-stalk hairy; seed-vessel orange-shaped. Bot. Mag., t. 9222.

Native of Japan, in Honshu and Hokkaido (Yezo); described by Maximowicz in 1867 but introduced to cultivation about 1929. In general appearance it is like its American congener, E. repens, which is the only other species known, but is distinct in its more uniformly sharply pointed, longer-stalked leaves. The corolla of E. repens is more downy inside. It is shade-loving and requires the same moist, peaty soil as E. repens, but is apparently no more amenable to cultivation.


Genus

Epigaea

Other species in the genus