Anneslea fragrans Seeds | Fragrant Anneslea
LATIN NAME: Anneslea fragrans
COMMON NAME: Fragrant Anneslea
Plant Profile
Fragrant anneslea is the only species in its genus, so almost everything about it is slightly singular: the leaves crowd at the ends of the twigs in false whorls, the flowers hang face down instead of standing up, and the fruit is a berry rather than the dry capsule most of its relatives produce. In flower, from late autumn into winter, the shrub is easy to find in forest because the scent carries, a heavy waxy sweetness that is strongest in still air after rain. The petals are thick and cream to pale yellow, and they do not fall cleanly; they collapse around the stamens and hang there for days. Wild plants run from three to ten metres, with grey-brown smooth bark and reddish young twigs, a useful field mark in the season when little else is showing. It grows from southern China through Hainan and Taiwan into Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, always on acid ground in hill forest.
Science & Biotechnology
The genus has been a small taxonomic argument for a century. Older floras placed Anneslea in Theaceae beside Camellia and Ternstroemia; the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group settlements moved it, with Ternstroemia and Eurya, into Pentaphylacaceae, and most current treatments follow that. The evidence came partly from wood anatomy and from the sclereids scattered through the leaf, which differ from those of the camellias. The flowers offer pollen rather than a flood of nectar, and the visitors recorded are mainly bees working the hanging bosses of stamens, which fits a winter bloomer in mild, humid forest. The fruit is a dark berry with a fleshy coat and oily seeds, taken by bulbuls and other frugivores that move the seed away from the parent. Germination is slow and uneven, as is usual where the seedling must wait for a light gap.
Uses & Benefits
Its garden value is scent and season. A single bush in flower will carry across a courtyard in December, and because the flowers hang, the perfume sits low where people walk rather than escaping overhead. The foliage is handsome enough to carry the plant for the rest of the year: stiff, glossy and deep green, with a rust-coloured flush on new growth. Cut branches hold for a week or more in water and are used in southern China for winter arrangements. The wood is hard, fine-grained and pale, and has gone into tool handles and small turnery where the tree is felled anyway. Local medicinal use is thin and mostly astringent bark decoctions, not a body of practice worth relying on. Mostly, though, this is a plant grown for the pleasure of a scented winter garden.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed, and clean the fleshy coat off first, because it invites mould in the closed atmosphere of a propagator. Use a mix of leaf mould, coarse sand and a little peat, and sow two centimetres deep in a deep pot, since the radicle goes down before the shoot comes up. Keep at 18 to 22 degrees with gentle bottom heat and expect germination over six to twelve weeks, unevenly, with some seed waiting until the following spring. The seedlings want filtered light for their first summer and acid, humus-rich ground that never dries out completely. Growth is slow for the first two years and then steady. Plant out once the stem is pencil-thick, in a sheltered position out of cold wind, and protect the first winters below about minus four degrees.
Our Take
A slow, scent-led shrub for mild climates, worth growing for the December flowers and the handsome evergreen leaves. Give it acid soil and shelter.
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