Champion Trees of Britain and Ireland

Back in May I attended the launch of Owen Johnson's book Champion Trees of Britain and Ireland, held on a rather grey evening at Kew. Owen is probably the champion tree-measureer in the country, travelling prodigiously by public transport to reach target trees, and has a remarkable knowledge of trees.  This is a review of the book I wrote for The Plantsman, a shortened version of which will appear in the September 2011 issue.



Champion Trees of Britain & Ireland, The Tree Register Handbook,
by Owen Johnson, 368 pp, 2011, Kew Publishing, £22, ISBN 9781842464526


In its previous incarnation, published by Whittet Books in 2001, Owen Johnson’s Champion Trees was essentially a library reference work, tall and slim. The current version, however, is, if not quite pocket-sized, at least handy for keeping in the car and is a much more useful book than its predecessor.

The Champion Quercus castaneifolia, planted at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, in about 1846. It is 31 m tall, with a diameter at breast height of 245 cm.

Once again, Owen Johnson has produced a remarkable compilation of facts and figures about the champion trees of these islands, a champion being defined as the tallest, the thickest, or occasionally oldest, most spreading or exceptionally beautiful example of its kind. Each entry contains a brief note about the species (not a description) and the appropriate record-holding individuals. It’s not a list to read through, but to browse in, and although quite terse, many contain some very useful points about the taxon or individual tree concerned. It is sad to note among them, occasionally, the shameful comment ‘this estate does not welcome tree-recorders.’ In general, I suspect, the book will stimulate some healthy rivalry between owners and counties, and lead to a lot more interest being shown in our uniquely rich range of large trees.

Thuja plicata 'Semperaurescens' - one of several champions at Colesbourne Park, measured by Owen Johnson at 23 m tall;, 100 cm dbh in 2004. A beautiful tree in all seasons.

The records section also sets out to be a complete list of trees in cultivation in the British Isles, which is very helpful, though this is an ever-shifting position. There is also a list of all native trees, including, perhaps controversially, Sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus. There is an index of synonyms, of common names, and to location, making the guide easy to navigate. Navigation is also implied in the valuable gazetteer of sites with good trees, which takes a circuitously non-alphabetical course through counties around Ireland before heading through Scotland and anticlockwise through England to Wales – an interesting approach but irritating when trying to find a particular location in a hurry. It’s also very unfortunate that no key is provided to the symbols used, although a crown clearly indicates a champion and a blue leaf a noteworthy specimen.



The ex-Champion Quercus candicans,
 which reached 9.5 m before being
killed by last winter's cold.
Any survivor could be the current Champion...

 Two points are important. Firstly, most champions are destined to hold that status for a comparatively short time: it’s rather like being the oldest inhabitant. Death or discovery of a larger specimen causes their supercession, and several mentioned here are already dead. The champion Quercus candicans, in Devon, was killed in last winter, for example, and the fastest-growing specimen recorded, a Eucalyptus nitens at Harcourt Arboretum, Oxford, met the same fate after achieving 20 m in six years during the balmy period 2002-2008. Living or dead, this book records important baseline data. Secondly, a large number of taxa are described as ‘rare’ or ‘in a few collections’ so it is to be hoped that this will spur appropriate replacement plantings and conservation efforts.

This is a useful, well-illustrated book that all tree enthusiasts need, and I congratulate the author and the Tree Register on its production.

Strong colours



Monardella macrantha subsp. hallii - a brilliant western American alpine, pollinated by hummingbirds

  All in the cottage garden this evening.

Achillea 'Pomegranate' - I think this is a splendid plant, just hope it's going to perennate well.

 

Calceolaria 'Kentish Hero': a tender shrublet, but well worth the trouble of propagating and keeping through the winter.



Allium wallichii is supposed to be tender but is thriving here.

Hemerocallis 'Broadway Night': I think this is not quite the right colour, but it's a nice dusky red.

Aeonium 'Zwartkop' - a Grimshaw signature plant

As grown by:

Rachel

Susan

Tom

John

Galtonia

Galtonia candicans at Colesbourne Park

A friend recently asked me how to tell apart the different species of Galtonia, a South African genus of four species in the Hyacinthaceae, closely related to and sometimes included in Ornithogalum. Of these, G. princeps is extremely rare in cultivation, and can effectively be knocked off the list of possibilities. The most familiar by far is Galtonia candicans, with abundant, large, pure white flowers: a magnificent hardy bulb for the summer garden. It needs to be seen en masse for its quality to be appreciated, and I have never seen it better than yesterday at the Savill Garden, where it fills all the gaps between big clumps of Agapanthus in a wide border. The effect is magnificent. G. candicans is native to eastern South Africa, at mid-altitudes (1350-2150 m), higher than the less hardy G. princeps, in which the flowers are less pure white, having a green band on each of the segments.

Galtonia candicans and Agapanthus at the Savill Garden

Galtonia regalis

G. regalis

 The other two species both have green flowers, but are easily distinguished. Both are from the Drakensberg, but whereas G. viridiflora has quite a wide distribution in the drier areas of the Eastern Cape and Lesotho, G. regalis has a narrow range on the wet, east-facing escarpment of the Berg in the area where Kwa-Zulu Natal meets the Free State and Lesotho, centred on Mont-aux-Sources. Its specific epithet, regalis, records its discovery in the Royal Natal National Park, where it is common on the cliffs of the Sentinel and Amphitheatre. To my mind it is the more attractive of the two, being shorter in stature and having more open flowers of a soft pale creamy green. The foliage is shining bright green, and tends to arch outwards.

G. viridiflora

The flowering times overlap, but G. viridiflora starts a week or 10 days earlier than G. regalis, but the flowers do not open widely and form a rather narrow tube of darker green with a hint of glaucous wax. They're also more numerous and more closely-spaced, and held on a much taller inflorescence. The leaves are more stiffly upright, and are also somewhat glaucous. It doesn't stand out in the garden as well as G. regalis does, but both are quite subtle in their charms and effect, so it's not surprising that the showy G. candicans is by far the best known member of the genus. All are easily grown from seed sown in spring, and these three at least are hardy in Britain.

The rather tubular, clustered flowers of Galtonia viridiflora

The genus commemorates the polymath Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), a noted traveller in his youth (and author of The Art of Travel, a wonderful insight into Victorian travel), but he does not seem to have visited anywhere that Galtonia would grow naturally. He quickly accepted his cousin Charles Darwin's views on evolution, and investigated heritability and variation in human character (especially intelligence) and morphology (pioneering the use of fingerprinting in criminology, for example), advocating eugenic marriages for the production of brighter children.

Francis Galton in the 1850s (Wikicommons)

Combinations in the borders at Colesbourne Park

Malva moschata and Verbascum blattaria

Allium cristophii seed head embedded in Sedum 'Herbstfreunde'



Gladiolus 'Dusk' with Phlox 'Natural Feelings'



Agapanthus with Scabiosa columbaria subsp. ochroleuca

Geranium pratense (Altai mountains form) and Tanacetum parthenium

Diascia rigescens with Argyranthemum 'Jamaica Primrose'

Looking forward - and back

Tulipa 'Absalom' (1780)



Tulip bulbs drying

Last year I splashed out and bought some rather expensive bulbs of historic tulips, which I grew in big pots and enjoyed outside the door in April and May. At the weekend, needing the pots, and mindful that tulips like a warm dry summer rest, I tipped them out and set the bulbs out to dry. By this evening the bulbs were superficially dry, so they've been placed in net bags and hung up in the shed. They'll be replanted in late October or early November. Most had multiplied well, producing both larger and smaller offsets, so I was quite happy and can look forward to another display of flowers next year.

 'Lac van Rijn' from 1620, one of the oldest extant tulips, from the period of tulipomania.







White poppies

Pure white Papaver somniferum flowering in the new gravel garden, from seed kindly provided by Sibylle Kreutzberger, sown in May. They look spectacular floating above the other plants and surrounded by grasses. I don't know of any purer white flower.