China

They don't told us we couldn't bring back any live animals from China, so with bufophilic dreams crushed we settled for the next best thing and brought back this incredibly vigorous toad lily from Anhui province. Quickly growing to form a patch of mighty stems clearing 4ft tall in our collector's garden with large broad leaves irregularly spotted (especially when newly emerged) and followed by delightful pink and white polka-dotted octopi in late summer and early fall. One of the best in our not unsizable Tricyrtis collection and well worth spending some quality time with sitting on your toadstool.

A collection from Sichuan by Riz Reyes which is quite exceptional. Our resident didact in Polygonatum and associates, Aaron Floden, has found this to be closely related to Disporopsis undulata but larger in all aspects earning the use of a placeholder "pseudoundulata" name. We can't settle the taxonomic nomenclature but "Rizing Star" wouldn't be half bad as a clonal name acknowledging both one of the Northwest's fine young plantsmen but also the superior flowers which is a good thing in a Disporopsis! For purposes of garden design, this is essentially an evergreen Solomon Seal that will get 18"-28" tall with off-white flowers touched in very light yellow in the interior and heavily speckled in dark amber. 

Perhaps the most attractive of the many Scheffleras we grow with its dusty pinkish-purple petioles and multiple tiers of leaflets (unusually good floral display as well from which one assumes it takes its name). This combined with the usual jurassic looking stems and graceful chandelier canopy that attracts us so hopelessly to the genus is almost too much to bear. This is easily evidenced by our insistence on toting in and out of the greenhouse each year a massive display pot housing one of these handsome beasts. These are seed-grown from our plants from the recent first North American introduction.