Lindera angustifolia Seeds | Narrow-leaved Spicebush
LATIN NAME: Lindera angustifolia
COMMON NAME: Narrow-leaved Spicebush
Plant Profile
Narrow-leaved spicebush is a deciduous shrub or small tree, two to five metres tall, with an upright, rather open habit and slender twigs that stay green for a season before turning grey. The leaves are the distinguishing feature: they are narrowly lance-shaped, eight to fifteen centimetres long but only one to two and a half centimetres wide, glossy dark green above and strikingly silvery-white beneath, with a spicy, peppery scent when crushed. In autumn the whole bush turns a clear, even yellow that lasts for several weeks.
The flowers are small, yellow-green and held in little umbels along the twigs in early spring, before the leaves have expanded, and the species is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Only female plants carry the fruit, which is a small, round, black drupe held on a red stalk and taken by birds in autumn. The species is native to the hills of eastern and southern China, from Jiangsu and Zhejiang across to Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong, where it grows in thickets, forest edges and on open slopes. It is one of a group of aromatic Chinese shrubby laurels, several of which have medicinal uses, and the group is confusing to identify without flowers or fruit.
Science & Biotechnology
The aromatic chemistry of the genus has been studied for decades. The leaves and bark of Lindera species contain essential oils rich in monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes, including linalool, geraniol, camphor and various furanosesquiterpenes, and the composition varies between species and between plant parts. Extracts have been examined for antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and insecticidal activity, and the genus is one of the sources of the Chinese drug Wu Yao, although the pharmacopoeial species is Lindera aggregata, a different plant with a different chemistry. Work on Lindera angustifolia specifically is thinner, mostly descriptive accounts of its oil and its traditional local uses.
The genus is also important in the study of the laurel family. Molecular phylogenies have reshaped the old division between Lindera, Litsea and the evergreen genera, and the deciduous, dioecious species of eastern Asia form a group with a long fossil record in the Northern Hemisphere. The species is dioecious and insect-pollinated, and its fruit is dispersed by birds, which explains its wide distribution in fragmented hill forest. Studies of its seed biology show that the drupe has a fleshy pericarp that inhibits germination until it is removed, and that the seed needs a period of cold, moist stratification before it will sprout.
Uses & Benefits
The plant has a modest place in local Chinese practice. The leaves and twigs are used as an aromatic tea and as a folk remedy for digestive complaints and for warming the body, and the bark has been applied externally. It is not a major herb, and it should not be substituted for Wu Yao in any formulation, since the species and the chemistry are different. The aromatic leaves are also used to scent stored clothes and to flavour food in some regions, in the way that related spicebushes are used elsewhere.
In the garden the species earns its place on two counts: the silvery undersides of the leaves, which flash in any breeze, and the clear yellow autumn colour, which is unusually clean for a shrub of this size. It is a good subject for a woodland edge, a mixed border or a hedge, and it responds well to clipping. It is also a useful plant for wildlife, since the early flowers feed bees and the autumn fruit feeds thrushes. It prefers moist, well-drained, acid soil in sun or part shade, and it colours best where it receives some direct light.
Growing from Seed
Collect the fruit when it turns black in autumn, rub the flesh off in water, and sow the seed immediately, or store it moist and cold for sowing in spring. The seed needs two to three months at four degrees to break dormancy. Sow into a mix of leaf mould, loam and sand, cover lightly, and keep at fifteen to twenty degrees. Germination takes six to ten weeks and is uneven; a proportion may wait until the second spring.
Prick the seedlings out into deep pots once they have true leaves, and grow them on in a shaded frame for the first year. Plant out in autumn or spring into moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil, in sun or light shade, and mulch with leaf mould. Water through the first two summers. The shrub is hardy to about minus twenty degrees and needs little pruning beyond the removal of crossing or damaged wood in late winter. If fruit is wanted, plant several seedlings so that both sexes are present.
Our Take
A quietly good shrub for a woodland garden, with two strong seasons and a scent that repays a crushed leaf. Grow a few together for fruit, and give it acid soil.
Related Reading
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