On my frequent visits to Fullers Mill Garden (near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk) I often see unfamiliar plants. The flower above caught my attention as something that I hadn’t seen before. It belongs to a Calycanthus, a shrub also known as Carolina allspice or sweetshrub.
The flowers look very different to anything I’ve seen on a shrub before. The first time I saw one was on a very still day. The flower was a softly faded deep rose and its petals (actually tepals) seemed rigid and sturdy, and somehow rather unreal in the stillness. At first glance that flower almost had the look of being finely carved out of wood. A strange impression, and one that I didn’t get when I saw them this year, as a lively breeze made sure that everything was in frequent movement.
That breeze means I cannot tell you what the scent was like. I think I missed out there! Sweetshrub is known for its fruity scent, described by the RHS as ‘combining hints of pineapple, strawberry and banana’. Next time I’ll need to have a good sniff at the flowers. (Actually, this looks like it may be either Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’ or C. ‘Hartlage Wine’, both of which are said to also have scent from the leaves and bark…even more to have a good sniff at.)
As you can see from the photo below, the leaves are large in comparison to the flowers. Calycanthus are big shrubs, which can reach a height and spread of 3M or more…a bit much for my over-stuffed garden. So I may not have the space to grow one, but I know where to go to enjoy those magenta-plum flowers, and, if I’m lucky, perhaps the scent too.
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 
🤩😍🥰🤗 stunning and interesting shrub and flowers
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They are a bit different to any shrub flowers that I’ve seen before. 🙂
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I’m with you in not having heard of Calycanthus, so I found an article about it.
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That’s an interesting article, especially to find out that one species has been shown to ‘produce chemicals that mimic fermenting fruits that attract beetles’. Maybe that accounts for the fruity scent.
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Your comment about the flowers seeming to be carved from wood was similar to my sense of things when seeing the first photo. I was going to ask if the flowers’ petals were thick, or waxy; they reminded me a bit of our southern magnolia flowers. The way they’re tucked into those large leaves was a bit magnolia-like as well: and what an interesting scent they must have! I hope you can experience it in the future.
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Interesting to see that you had a similar impression on seeing that photo. The flowers didn’t look waxy but the petals seemed quite solid and thick. I’ve seen a few comparisons between these and magnolias…they do seem to have similarities. They are both plants that evolved to be pollinated by beetles, at a time before pollination by bees, so they are plants with a very long history!
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Absolutely unknown! Don’t know whether it is grows in this part of the world!
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It was a very pleasant surprise for me when I saw one for the first time last June. I’ve never yet seen one anywhere else, but I do see them for sale on the internet, so there must be gardens here in the UK that grow them. (Haven’t heard of them in your part of the world.)
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This plant appears quite showy. The flower parts look quite waxy, I don’t know if you could confirm that impression by touching them. It’s a new plant for me as well. As is the word tepal, which I had to look up.
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Next time I see one, I’ll touch it (if I can get close enough), because now I want to know too! 🙂 I think tepals can be a bit thicker than petals, which may affect how they look.
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