A fascinating botanical hook-up took place in Spartanburg, SC. when a lonely Distyllum myricoides took a liking to a nearby Parrotia persica. The babies were discovered near the Distyllum, by garden director and plant breeder, Dr. Kevin Parris, who quickly realized what had taken place, just outside of the horticulture classroom building. After growing out nine distinct seedlings, samples were sent to NC State for DNA confirmation, and indeed the plants he discovered, constituted a new bigeneric hybrid, which was named ×Distylparrotia spartanburgii. The official publication will follow.
Our three year old, fast-growing plant of ×Distylparrotia spartanburgii ‘Spartanjade 01′, has already reached the size of a convience store, i.e. 7′ x 11’, and shows no signs of slowing down. Despite the Parrotia parent being deciduous, our plant has remained completely evergreen so far. Kevin tells me that in Spartanburg, this clone is tardily deciduous, as we would anticipate in colder zones. Despite having incredible botanical fascination, it probably will never become commercial. For now, the only place to acquire one is the annual Southeastern Plant Symposium rare plant auction.
Below are images of the foliage of both parents, along with one of the babies
We grabbed one of these to trial at Limeledge, Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York (USDA Z6). If it survives, it’s a great educational taxon with strong hooks in biology for us to use in our programming.
I heard this nothogenus might be published as ×Distylarrotia; typically the genus names are combined without one of them remaining whole, although The Code would technically permit ×Distylparrotia. The species epithet though would probably be spartanburgENSIS to denote a geographical location; the -ii ending is meant to be used when naming something after a person, although it would again be technically legal. Regardless, I hope it gets published soon because pinning a fixed name to it will help it gain notoriety, and even if this clone is not horticulturally savvy, it could pave the way for more breeding and innovation in this interesting group.
Distylium