Edgeworthia chrysantha Seeds | Paperbush
LATIN NAME: Edgeworthia chrysantha
COMMON NAME: Paperbush
Plant Profile
Prune nothing and the shrub still builds a shape. Edgeworthia chrysantha branches by forking: a shoot ends in two or three new shoots, each of which forks again, so the silhouette becomes a series of flat candelabra tiers rather than a rounded bush. The forks are why the plant reads so clearly in winter, and why the flower heads sit in neat ranks along the bare stems. Cut a stem back and the new shoots fork again at the same angle, so the pattern repeats as the plant ages.
The buds form in autumn and swell slowly, clustered tightly at each fork and covered in silky hairs that protect them from cold. They open on bare wood at the end of winter as a nodding ball of small tubular flowers in cream and yellow, with a fragrance that carries much further than the size of the flower suggests. The leaves stay pendulous and soft and drop late, so the plant is leafless only briefly.
John Lindley named the genus for Michael Pakenham Edgeworth, an Irish botanist and colonial administrator who collected plants in India and the Himalayas while working in the civil service. The species reached Western gardens in the nineteenth century and has been in cultivation long enough to accumulate several names, including the paper-making form Edgeworthia papyrifera, now folded into synonymy.
Science & Biotechnology
The other side of the family chemistry deserves respect. Thymelaeaceae are characterised by diterpene esters, with daphnetoxin and mezerein the type compounds, named from the mezereon and spurge-laurel relatives, together with coumarins such as daphnin. These substances irritate skin and eyes, and the bark and roots are where they concentrate. Wear gloves when you strip stems, and keep the plant away from grazing animals.
Uses & Benefits
The plant’s industrial fame rests on its inner bark. The bast fibres are long and flexible with thin walls, high in cellulose and low in lignin, and they felt together into a sheet that stays strong even when it is very thin, the quality that made this fibre a standard ingredient of fine handmade paper and of banknote paper in Japan. The fibre takes dye well and holds a crisp edge when folded, which is why it became the paper of choice for documents and for currency. The processing is a craft from end to end:
Growing from Seed
The best use of a paperbush is a branch cut in bud and brought inside. Cut stems in the middle of winter, choosing branches whose buds are fat and still tightly closed, split the base of the stem and stand it in deep water in a cool room. The flowers open over the following weeks and the scent fills a hall. Outdoors, plant it near a door or a path where the winter fragrance will be met on the way past, in sun or light shade, sheltered from cold wind.
The seed is small and short-lived, so sow it fresh on the surface of a humus-rich mix, cover it lightly, and keep it cool and shaded. Prick out the seedlings at the second true leaf and pot them on without delay, because the roots resent disturbance and the plants sulk for a season if they are left in a seed tray. Outdoors, set them about a metre apart if you want a thicket, in soil enriched with leaf mould and grit, and water steadily for the first two summers.
Flower buds form on the season’s growth, so the moment to prune is immediately after flowering and never later. Take out the oldest stems at the base and shorten the rest lightly; the plant will rebuild a candelabra of new shoots that carry next winter’s buds. Aphids and scale can colonise the soft stems in summer, and winter wet at the roots is the commonest cause of decline, because drainage matters more than feeding here.
Our Take
Paperbush is a winter plant and repays being sited for that purpose: somewhere you pass in the cold months, not the back of a border. If your garden is mild enough for the mezereon family, compare winter daphne for a smaller and even more perfumed shrub, and lilac daphne for early flowers on bare stems. Growers interested in paper fibres should look at paper mulberry for another handmade-paper crop, and at agarwood, a resinous relative in the same family.
Related Reading
If Paperbush appeals to you, these related plants are worth a look: