You’d need to be a pretty serious plant nerd to grow members of the obscure evergreen genus, Eurya, in your garden. Of the 160 species in the genus, we’ve tried four, which is possibly some sort of record. Eurya‘s family, Pentaphyllaceae, tells us that it has some other better known relatives, such as Ternstroemia and Cleyera. The most popular species of this Asian native is Eurya japonica, which hails from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The Japanese have made a number of selections, primarily with odd foliage, but in our opinion, it’s hard to beat the cultivar Eurya japonica ‘Moutiers’. As you can see below, each leaf is pewter colored with a razor thin green margin. As you can imagine, this is hugely popular with bonsai enthusiasts. Our oldest specimen (below) is now 11 years old, and 10′ in height.
Esoteric family, Pentaphylacaceae.