China

Rubus can be scary but with this classy China species, it will be shivers of delight instead of fear. Graham Stuart Thomas "One of the finest of all foliage plants". 4'-8' upright somewhat arching canes. A clumper and not a vine with few small fruits, white flowers and no thorns

Our collection of this Asian herbaceous perennial vining member of the Bellflower or Campanula family, this is very distinctive in having narrow and elegant tubular green flowers on a vine to 8'. This will die down each fall but pop back in the spring. This prefers bright shade to part shade and we found this growing in shrubbery in open forest.

If the nursery catches on fire or there is an EF5 tornado bearing down or skies darken from a locust plague of biblical proportions, this is in the first armload we grab. A gesneriad from our collection in Asia where this grew on shaded, mossy rock faces enjoying Acer griseum and Emmenopterys henryi as neighbors. Gloriously large, totally tubular lavender-pink flowers awaken urges long forgotten. Hardy here at FRF in the maritime PNW. A portion of the proceeds goes to support the mission of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy.

A floriferous and perhaps hardier selection with a bit larger flowers than usual by the late Don Jacobs of Eco-Gardens in Georgia. Don was one of the first nurserymen to get into China in 1983 as the bamboo curtain was lifting. It is hard not to like the soft lavender-blue flowers with darker spotting around the white band surrounding the yellow thumbprint. Light shade.

The form matching best with the species description. This is a low-growing evergreen Solomon Seal ally from China and has a more refined look than other forms of this species which we grow. Nice white flowers with a bit of caramel amber added and purplish fruit that follows.

On the spectrum of hardy aroids Pinellias fall somewhere between Arum and Arisaema with the attractive heart shaped leaves of the former and the hooded long-tongued flowers of the latter. Take that mix and shrink it all down and you get this lil cutie which reproduces itself by offsets and bulbils held on the leaves while not being as weedy as some other Pinellias. I have some qualms on calling this and the other larger marbled "form" the same thing but whatever the correct name it is still well worth having.

Superb and hardy fern from our collection in Mogecuo, Sichuan found growing in thick moss atop a large boulder shaded by Rhododendron bureavioides. Pretty sure on the genus and obviously floundering on the species. The genus has undergone recent revision and names may not yet be finalized. Hardy for us and deciduous.

From the southern portion of its range, this collection has performed wildly beyond expectations given the low bar set from the dormant plants in the wild where they were 8'-10' tall in full exposure. We seldom name plants but this selection is worthy with profuse bee-laden white flowers from top to bottom.

It's a well-known fact of life that miniature means cute. And this widdle-bitty Iris hits all the same dopamine and oxytocin receptors longing for the long forgotten taste of that sweet sweet brain candy we shoveled in so naively as children. Nurseryman Darrell Probst clearly has an eye for the adorable, as this unique selection of an already extremely rare and choice iris sports pale flowers of only about 1.5" amidst fine grassy evergreen foliage.

Our China collection of this most remarkable species. Favoring rich, moist areas which is required to pump up the nearly 6' in length frond volume. These fronds extend out laxly horizontally which assists in their asexual reproduction from plantlets developing from the little furry balls - careful! - at frond's end. Mulch crown in cold winters.

Shrubby little Gesneriad (African Violet family) which will form multiple stems to a foot or so tall with lots of funnel-shaped light lavender-white flowers with throats lined in dark veins. Kind of reminds us of one of the subshrubby Monkeyflowers in a way. Best kept from frost but easy inside over winter. This is widespread in China dipping into Vietnam and jumping over to Taiwan and Japan ranging from 1000' to 7200' stems 3" to 4' tall. There seems to be one form commonly in cultivation which is the glabrous var. pauciflorus and obviously the hardy alpine 3" tall form as well as the subtropical 4 footer needs to be introduced! Sounds like a sponsorship opportunity for a collecting expedition by the Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy in case there is a generous gesneriafficinado out there despairing over the paucity of available diversity in Lysionotus pauciflorus.

Our collection of this good foliage species with pink pipe cleaner flowers which closely resembles B. tricuspis and damned if we can distinguish between the two but a better botanist than we keyed this to spicata. This was growing in a shaded nook at the base of a mossy cliff with Actaea purpurea and across the track, Acer griseum. Fun shade species which should be deer resistant.

Very collectible selection of this hardy terrestrial orchid which boasts - yes, boasts, of its unique, light chartreuse foliage. if your ears, like ours, are tuned to that high frequency in which plants converse, you can just make out this orchid sounding like an NBA player after throwing down a one-handed jam from an alley-oop "Yeah! Lookit me! Me! I'm a bad-ass orchid! You ask yo mama how bad I am! An yo sister - she loves how my leaves shine when the lights go down." I've given up on the NBA because such displays are wearisome but somehow, with this orchid, it is an endearing cheekiness. Light yellow foliage looks it best in bright shade to part sun and not the part during the hot part of the day. Leaves 18"-24" with pinkish-purple flowers a few inches taller in June and hardy to zone 6 especially with winter mulch.

Excellent selection of this early flowering Chinese species. This is more robust than the typical cautleyoides which is already an awesome species. Puts on a show with large flowers of a soft primrose yellow that are held well above the leaves. A good increaser, this will in a few short years, be a focal point.

We've seen this wee gem in both Bhutan and Sichuan at high elevations at 12000' where it mingles in alpine meadows. Open-faced lavender pink flowers at ground level followed closely by foliage just a few inches high. Easy in the garden. Who would suspect it's a Solomon's Seal?

Our collection from the eastern extension of its range in Hubei, this wild provenance is a rare offering of this exceptional garden fern. It must be a given that this is in the Top Ten of Hardy Ferns as it offers incredible texture forming a small dense carpet. Clip old fronds off close just before the new growth emerges or not, beautiful either way.

Another fantastic humeana clone of ours with very large flowers of which we are finally offering a few. This comes at no small personal diminishment of something deep and pure that must be the precursor to our intrinsic plant hoarding proclivities of which monetary compensation assuages but little. Similar but different than 'Boffo'.

Chinese Mayapple. One of the great shade plants with just outrageous new growth when the bold and distinctly lobed leafed are colored in ochre velvet with complex dark patterns like something seen during guided psychotropic therapy. Broadly rounded and lobed leaves shield the red flowers beneath. Rich moist soil and avoid direct sun. This a shorter plant and more richly colored overall than the delavayi we offer as a presumptive hybrid. We will soon adopt Dysosma as the genus - maybe in the winter when we can make all the database changes.

Extreme rarity from the summit of Jinfoshan where this was found growing in moss and leaf litter atop a narrow shoulder of hard limestone napped in snow from the night before. A diminutive species to just 3" tall with small evergreen thumbnail leaves and small white flowers touched in rose on the interior. Light lavender fruit follows. We expect this to be among the hardiest of the Disporopsis and are pleased to be the first to introduce and offer the true species. As a side note of irony, the collection site has subsequently been destroyed by development for eco-tourism.

Our collection from the lower slopes of Mt Japfu in Nagaland at around 7000'. (NAPE= Nagaland/Arunachal Pradesh Expedition 2203) This is an epiphyte growing below the frost zone with showy red flowers and narrow petals. Best cool in loose, airy, mossy soil, treated like an indoor fern. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering