Vietnam

Cutting grown from original seed collection in Vietnam's Hoang Lien Son mountains by Floden-Mitchell-Wynn-Jones. The evergreen trees were 50' with showy red seed "cones" with scented pink to sometimes red flowers. We have not flowered our plant so on tenterhooks. This species is best in mild gardens.

Extraordinary yellow-flowered evergreen species from northern Vietnam on this collection. The trees in the wild were all small second-growth trees with mature examples nowhere in evidence. That night we slept in a nearby farmer's house with our sleeping bags on wide flooring planks of magnolia wood - mystery solved where the big trees went. Best in a sheltered spot from freezing winds. Young plants of this choice species.

A lovely shrubby epiphytic Indochina gesneriad in the same genus as lipstick vine. That comparison made, this should be an excellent houseplant although we speculate that it ought to take a brief light frost. A lot of the exposed limestone ridges radiate heat away at night making them colder. Red tubular flowers. Airy crumbly soil. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Plant

Staggeringly good foliage Begonia collected by Ozzie Johnson at Bai Dat Sun in northern Vietnam that we previously offered as cf. villifolia. Large tan-green leaves with a later than 5 o'clock shadow of red hairs. Pink flowers play peekaboo in the foliage. A species not fully trialed for hardiness but zone 8b with protection such as a mulch of wood shavings.

Originally from Maurice Foster who is one of the UK's great plantsmen who would not gladly brook an inferior form. This can hit 10'+ in height with a narrow aspect and generally deciduous willowish or bamboo-like leaves. Small purplish flowers and outrageous jester's cap fruit with dangling orange arils. This used to be the variety quinquecornutus but that has been sunk. We've seen this various times in China and Vietnam and always get the same pleasant rush.

This species was only recently described by botanist Julian Shaw in 2012 from a collection in Hoang Lien Son range on the second summit trail of Phansi Pu in Vietnam. These are second-generation seed-grown plants from a 2011 recollection by Floden-Mitchell & Wynn-Jones. Discovered and introduced by Bleddyn Wynn-Jones with the expected evergreen leaves and early season scented white flowers. These are young plants.

Blackberry Lily. Our collection of this extremely widespread Asian species which not only has attractive deep orange flowers that are overlaid in a plethora of red spots but also the seed is curiously attractive looking for all the world like a large blackberry. This has wide application in traditional Chinese medicine and our collection is likely an escapee from the local mountain village.

Young plants of a rare offering of this graceful woodland species from the borderlands of China and Vietnam. Upright plants to 10' that rarely branch with expected Schefflera - we mean Heptapleurum - green leaves. Umbels of black fruit in a raceme. Hardiness unknown but let's start with not very. A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering

This smaller Schefflera is a very ornamental species from our collection northern Vietnam from a mountain previously unexplored by westerners. Loose panicles of presumed creamy flowers and black fruit. Similar but different to Schefflera sp. NV 023. Pretty cool! A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering.

Shayne Chandler's collection from Vietnam of this assuredly tender but most enchanting Begonia. Long stems gloriously hirsute in red hairs hold broadly rounded palmate leaves whose upper surface is studded with carefully spaced green hairs and the underside veins bristle darkly. Pendulous white flowers are small but wow with calyces bearded thickly in Viking red. We easily overwinter this in a cool greenhouse.

Small winter-flowering species collected by Kettle and Wynn-Jones on Mt Fansipan in northern Vietnam. This is nice little ginger given varietal status due to its larger flowers and much larger sagittate anthers. Sagittate anther envy - it happens even in the plant world. Stems to 28" with very nice spidery white lightly scented flowers with reddish bracts. One of the evergreen species and best suited to frost-free conditions but does great in containers and easy to bring in during cold snaps - we keep ours just above freezing in the winter during the cold dips. Collectable rarity and worth trying indoors if you don't live in the Bay Area.

Chinese Bald Cypress. Another one of those monotypic genera we love! This deciduous conifer is the only species in the genus and highly threatened by habitat loss in the wild. This will get to be a big tree which your yet unborn child's children can sit under. In their boat. Fairly slow - ours is in our bog garden pond.

A collection from northern Vietnam of this evergreen epiphytic species which is hardier than supposed as the similar subspecies tonkinensis has been fine in our garden. Chubby white bells cluster like piglets in the leaf axils and are followed by reddish fruit. Very, very rare and adds a bit of cocky plantsmanship to the garden. This was collected nearly 1200' higher than the FMWJ 13066 collection we offer.

As Cousin Itt is to the Addams family Agapetes malipoensis is to the Agapetes genus, a freak even among freaks. In a genus full of mind boggling fruits and flowers the slender yellow-white tubes covered in white fuzz put out by these fellas is sure to delight those that find charisma in cretinous things with inexplicably devoted fanbases. Our collection from mountainous North Vietnam as yet untrialled for hardiness though the species has been grown outside at the Rhody garden.

This subshrubby gesneriad from Yunnan-Vietnam border region is in a favorite genus and we have yet to see a Lysionotus that we don't like.  Evergreen foliage on semi-woody stems with creeping creeping stems which help to solidify its grip on the mossy trunks of trees or on rocky outcrops.  Long wiry pedicels hold oversized tubular white flowers nicely appointed in longitudinal pink stripes.  Best frost-free.

We first encountered this species in the fall of 1997 when we were on the mid to lower slopes of the Cangshan Mountains looking down to the barely discernible 3 Pagodas of Dali fronting the broad expanse of Lake Erhai. This groundcover species formed broad carpets of evergreen foliage covering the large rocks on the boulder-strewn slope so as to give the impression of a tumultuous green sea frozen in place. The day sounds much better than it was, for back in 97 there was but a rough single track road to the higher elevations and on that day our jeeps were blocked by a massively overloaded lorry whose driveline had failed under the weight of massive marble blocks quarried from the higher reaches. The truck was gradually sinking into the mud with just a few inches of clearance and a young skinny boy had been fetched from downslope to slither underneath and effect repairs, which was going to take many hours at best. This meant we were stranded at low elevation with a bunch of botanically fascinating, marginally hardy plants which was not our goal. We made the best of it and one of our new acquaintances was this Ficus.

We were pleased as punch when our friend Jim Fox gifted us with cuttings he took from Roy Lancaster's garden where it is growing as a foundation plant against his home. It was not a stretch to think that this plant was from the same population we had seen as Roy had traveled this same road years earlier as part of the Sino-British Expedition to Cangshan. Sadly we can't grow this outside here in our gardens but if you are lucky enough to have only very light frosts or none at all, then this would be a fine groundcover. This does have small reddish figs but stick to the ones you get at the store.

Our collection from Vietnam of this fascinating epiphytic genus.  This was growing on a tree trunk on a small limestone ridge populated by a mix of frost-tolerant and frost-intolerant species.  The hardiness of this remains to be tested here - maybe a warm zone 8b? - but it will be planted out spring of 2024.  Excellent drainage is likely key to improved hardiness and ours is going in a tufa wall.  Spreads by creeping rhizomes and has dimorphic leaves with persistent basal fronds and fertile foliage fronds.

This is likely the first introduction to cultivation of this curious Theaceae or Tea family member from our collection just north of the Vietnam border in Guangxi Province. This is serious 99% pure Plant Crack and even we have to cut this stuff to be able to function well enough to do things like buy groceries. An evergreen shrub to 10' in the wild with long, slightly drooping olive-green leaves prominently hirsute especially along the margins. Lamentably insignificant cream flower whose petals barely exert themselves beyond the green sepals whose reduced number and size places this as var. glischroloma according to the Flora of China. Look beyond the transience that is flowers, if this had any to speak of, and be wowed by what is really good foliage on a very handsome shrub that will mark you as an irredeemable plant nut. The flowers give way to small black fruit. No idea how hardy this is but we are thinking zone 8 as this mountain endured a serious cold and ice event in 2008 and we saw no evidence of damage to these plants in 2010. We returned in 2012 and it is this collection that is being offered.

This Vietnam collection of the Sour Gum tree leaves us shaking our heads in some amazement as we are awed by its vigorous growth with new foliage colored red-purple. Then we shake our heads in sadness as we are too cold to grow this - regrowing from the base doesn't count! Give it plenty of room - screen your neighbor.

This clone came from a knowledgeable plantsman in Vietnam and no data as to whether it was from a wild collection or a cultivated plant originating from China. Evergreen Solomon Seal relative with white bells under upright and slightly arching stems clad in alternate green leaves. Hardy in Kansas.