Carpinus fangiana seed

LATIN NAME: Carpinus fangiana

COMMON NAME: Fang’s Hornbeam

The Fang’s hornbeam is a handsome, upright, tall, deciduous tree of the cool forests, and its fine, oval or lance-shaped, sharply toothed leaves and its fine, long, hanging, hop-like clusters of the small, papery, three-lobed bracts, each holding a small, hard nutlet, have made it a treasured and fine tree of the region. It grows as an upright, tall, deciduous tree, reaching up to twenty metres or more, with the upright, tapering trunk bearing the alternate, oval or lance-shaped, pointed, sharply toothed leaves and, through the spring, the small, inconspicuous catkins, followed by the fine, long, hanging, hop-like clusters of the small, papery, three-lobed bracts, each holding a small, hard, ribbed nutlet. It is a species of the flowering tree in the birch family, and it is native to the cool forests of the south-western China, while it is treasured for its fine, hanging, hop-like fruiting clusters, and it is known as the Fang’s hornbeam.

In the birch family it is the hop-fruited hornbeam of the cool forests, a tree whose long, hanging chains of the papery bracts are the talk of the autumn woodland.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The Fang’s hornbeam appears in the forest-ecology papers of the south-west, and the botanists have mapped its place in the birch family and the regional flora. The study of the long, hanging, hop-like clusters of the papery bracts has drawn the attention of the botanists of the fruit and the seed display, and the foresters have valued the hard, tough wood of the region. It is a tree of the distinctive, useful kind, and the growers of the woodland trees keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the garden and the woodland, the Fang’s hornbeam is the hop-fruited tree of the season. Its catkins feed the insects, its hard nutlets feed the birds and the small creatures, and the dense, leafy crown gives the garden a fine shade. It is treasured for the long, hanging chains of the papery bracts, and it grows well in the rich, moist, well-drained ground. Hop-fruited, toothed-leaved and distinctive.

Clean the fine nutlets out of the papery bracts and give them a cold, damp rest in a bag of moist sand in the fridge, then sow them shallowly in pots of loamy, free-draining soil, keep them moist and set the pots in a bright, sheltered spot, and they’ll be along in their own good time.