The Buckland Faux Paus

I first met the genus, Exbucklandia, in the fall of 1996, at China’s Kunming Botanic Garden. At the time, I’d never heard of this odd, evergreen witch hazel cousin. Not only was the plant odd, but the genus name was an equal oddity. It was originally named by Scottish taxonomist, Robert Brown in 1832, as the genus, Bucklandia, to honor his friend, English geologist/palentologist, William Buckland. The name stood for 114 years, when it was finally discovered that the same genus name had already been used for a fossilized cycad genus, seven years prior to Brown’s publication. To resolve the duplicate naming issue, Brown’s plant genus was renamed as Exbucklandia.

During my 1996 visit, the staff at the Kunming Botanic Garden was kind enough to allow us to gather seed, of which we could find only three. Returning home, only one of my seed germinated, and after growing it indoors for a couple of years, we were ready for outdoor trials. At the time, we could only find evidence of one other plant in the US, and that was at California’s Berkeley Botanic Garden. All of the information I could find, assured me that Zone 9 was the northernmost limit of winter hardiness.

By 1999, our plant was large enough to be planted outdoors, so we chose a location near our brick house foundation, in hopes of picking up a bit of heat from the sun hitting the bricks. Little did I know that our coldest day for the next two decades would arrive the first winter, when we dropped to 1F, and 9F, on consecutive days in late January. Despite the cold, our plant came through the winter with only slight foliar damage. It continued to grow larger each year, with skeptical visiting horticulturists, all assuring me that when if reached the roof line and no longer had protection from the house, it would certainly die. Well, 26 years after its’ planting, our Exbucklandia continues to thrive, with no signs of winter damage, despite it long ago passing the roof line. Subsequent plantings of two other exbucklandia collections at JLBG were met with failure, so indeed, the genetics of our clone, which we named Exbucklandia tonkinensis ‘Kunming Champion’, are truly superior in terms of growth and winter hardiness. Hardiness Zone 7b-10b.