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longriver_gw

Osmanthus,I learned in China

longriver
18 years ago

Osmanthus produces very fragrant flowers. Most speciese are native of China. About 22 cities in China select Osmanthus as their city flower.I went to China in March purely for Camellia. Because of this Forum which makes me aware of fragrant Osmanthus. It was not the season for Osmanthus bloom. However I did see and smell the Osmanthus bloom( the variety of Four Season Osmanthus).

My friends in the city of Jinhua, Zhejiang made a list of their 12 popular Osmanthus cultivars. Does any one in the States has any one of them? They are:

Orange red type:

1. Hard Leaf Red Osmanthus

2. Pretty Face

3. Celebration Red for National Valedictorian

4. Intoxicated Flesh red

5. Bright Red and Crystalized Fragrance

Golden Osmanthus:

6. Golden Ball Osmanthus

7. Smile from Heart

Silver Osmanthus:

8. Long Leaf and White Jade

9. Cute Jade

Four season Osmanthus:

  1. Four Season Osmanthus
  2. Goddess Showering Flowers
  3. Fragrant Gazebo in Heaven


The popular variety means preference of the flower, flowering time or fragrance.

Comments (8)

  • bcgift52
    18 years ago

    longriver: I have never seen any of the names you
    mentioned for sale, but most plants are sold using
    botanical names, like Osmanthus fragrans, etc. Do
    you by any chance know the botanical names of these
    cultivars ?

  • longriver
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    Let me try to put the situations together as it has been:
    1. China has most Osmanthus species and new cultivars but has never been a country of ICRA, International Cultivar Registration Authority.
    2. Osmanthus is considered in China one of the oldest fragrant plants utilized by human. The Osmanthus pollens at new stone age was detected in the cave from Guilin, Guangxi, Province.
    3. China is been working very hard to gain the status of ICRA since 2001.
    4. That is why so many Osmanthus cultivars enjoyed by so many people over thousands of years, over most south of China yet they do not bother to register them.
    5 However the four groups of Osmanthus Fragrans( each group has so many cultivars in Chinese name) in western name are:

    Four Seasons Blooming type called: Fragrans group
    Silver Flower Blooming tpye called: Latifolius group
    Golden Flower Blooming type called: Thunbergii Group
    Reddish Orange Blooming type called: Aurantiacus Group

  • Ron_B
    18 years ago

    The first set of names, in the first post are transliterations. Cultivar names, where each transliteration refers to a single entity that corresponds to a cultivar, would be an English language version of the Chinese name. We probably have some of these plants here, a few at least under such English approximations. Others will have English names coined for Western distribution, that may have little to do with what that variety (or type) is called in China.

    Most, if not all of the names given in the last post indicate you are asking about forms of Osmanthus fragrans.

    "The Plant Locator - Western Region" (Black-Eyed Susans/Timber) lists Osmanthus

    fragrans f. aurantiacus
    fragrans 'Fudingzhu'
    fragrans 'Nanjing's Beauty'
    fragrans f. thunbergii

    and gives commercial sources for them.

  • longriver
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I am very sure eventually the experts will sorting out the naming. The new cultivars hopefully can be propagated in Western countries.
    Classification of plants about species and groups are always controversial, even among the experts. The new approach is to use certain segment of gene analysis. Even so that methodology itself is still a controversial subject simply because gene pool is just too huge. I will let the experts to worry about that.

  • daxin
    18 years ago

    The four season group is called semperflorens group in China
    and the very best cultivar is 'RiXiangGui', meaning daily
    fragrant osmanthus. It can bloom 240-260 days a year but
    unfortunately it is still not available here in the
    U.S. The Fudingzhu we have here is a nice semperflorens
    cultivar, maybe the 2nd best behind Rixianggui. It can bloom
    ~200 days a year. BTW, there are three ~2000 year old
    Osmanthus fragrans trees alive in Sichuan, China. The oldest
    one has a trunk diameter of 6' and a canopy 20' across. Now
    that is a seriously wafting fragrant tree.

  • Ron_B
    18 years ago

    Unless it looks like a Baobab tree, that's probably a circumference of 6' and not a diameter of 6'. If it's really 6' thick, then its circumference - assuming it had a fairly round trunk- would be approximately 18', almost as much as its height! Some local records:

    Osmanthus x fortunei

    24' x 5'6" x 24' 1992 Seattle, 4115 Brooklyn Ave E

    Osmanthus heterophyllus

    18' x 3'11" x 33' 1993 Tacoma, Pt Defiance Park
    22' x 3'1" x 27' 1993 Seattle, Washington Park Arboretum

  • longriver
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I am very sure there are a few cultivars outside of China in botanical names.

    There were 102 cultivars.Then some universities and Osmanthus experts in China made jointed studies and they reduced it to 62 cultivars.

    The flowers is also considered as a crop for harvest. Healthy 100 to 300 years old tree will yield 30 to 50 Kg.

    I stayed at a special Hotel at HuangZhou Botanical Garden. The Osmanthus trees by thousands serve as shade tree for city road, pedestrian paths or in the parks. The height is about 20 to 30 feet.

  • daxin
    18 years ago

    I must say that I have neither seen this ancient Osmanthus personally, nor any photos. I did mess up the metric-to-english conversion about the canopy, which should be 60' across. The trunk is stated as >6' in DIAMETER (232cm to be exact). I think this number is plausible considering that it is a 2000 year old tree as verified by carbon dating. If the tree on average has an annual ring spacing of 0.5mm, 2000 years later the trunk diameter will be 2m (> 6 feet)

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