TREES OF THE MONTH - JUNE 2016. THE SNOWDROP AND SNOWBELL TREES

Snowdrop Tree. Image By Meneerke bloem - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

June's Trees of the Month is a two for the price of one: the Snowdrop and Snowbell trees. It is to be a very short blog for the very good reason that I know very little about them - other than that  they are beautiful trees that are too infrequently planted and deserve a mention, even if it is a necessarily brief one. They may not smack you in the retina like some of the Cherries, but if grace and elegance are your thing, they might be the trees for you! I find it easy to to confuse the two due to the similarity of their names and also of their flowers, so I for ease I combine them here. In any case, they are both in the family Styracaceae so I have some excuse for doing so.

I have to apologise for spoiling this photo of a Snowdrop Tree by putting my ugly mug in front of it. I had no intention of using it for a blog but it's the only one I can find showing most of a tree in flower

The Snowdrop Tree, also known as Silverbell (Halesia sp), hails from South East USA. Introduced by J E Ellis in 1756, it was named after his friend, Stephen Hales, a Clergyman and scientist from Teddington, London.  W J Bean lists two species you might encounter in the UK, Halesia carolina and a much later introduction, H. monticola (the Mountain Snowdrop) - with the latter only being afforded separate species rank by Sargent in 1922. But, confusingly, I also read that the boffins may have reclassified the Mountain Snowdrop and re-subsumed it within the carolina species. Whatever - as far as I know, I've only ever seen Halesia carolina which will reach 20-30ft whereas the Mountain Snowdrop often reaches 80-100ft in the wild and is an important timber tree - though, to confuse matters more, one source says it will only form a small tree in the UK.

The pendulous pure white bell shaped flowers hang in groups of three to five from slender stalks on one year old wood. The emerge before the leaves, usually in May, and flower well into June. Young plants will often begin flowering in their third or fourth year.

In autumn, the leaves will turn a clear golden yellow in colour.

Halesia fruit. Image By Kurt Stüber [1] - wiki commons.wikimedia.org

The fruit are about 3cm long with distinct vertical wings. They are a pale green when young, ageing to brown, and are held on the tree well into autumn, making a feature in their own right, especially in silhouette.

To propagate, the seeds need 60-90 days of cold stratification. Seeds planted in the ground will often take two years to germinate. The tree can also be propagated from softwood cuttings.

By Dalgial - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, wiki commons.wikimedia.org

This is the Japanese Snowbell, Styrax japonica - I think I can be forgiven for confusing it with the Halesias or Snowdrop trees. Although closely related, they are different genera with distinctly different fruit - Styrax fruit being small round dry drupe-like fruit with two seeds.

There are about 130 species of Styrax across America, East Asia and Malaysia and just one native to Europe. Probably the most frequently planted in Britain, and deservedly so, is the Japanese Snowbell, Styrax japonica, a small tree of 10 - 25ft with graceful slender spreading and sometimes drooping branches. The pure white flowers hanging along the undersides of the branches are delightful viewed from beneath. I had the perfect spot for one in my garden, on top of a bank beside a path running alongside the house where, as you passed, you would have a stunning display arching over your head. I duly set out to acquire one about 15 years ago but, given the choice between the Japanese Snowbell and the rarer Hemsley's Snowbell, Styrax Hemsleyana (or, less attractively named Hemsley's Storax), I opted for the Hemsley's for no better reason than that it was rarer - after all it couldn't be that different could it?......

....Well, actually it could. This picture was taken just as the flowers were beginning to open...on erect racemes, so the view from beneath is not so effective. Also the leaves are much rounder and wider and, well, altogether less elegant than the Japanese Snowbell. Oh well, it's still a plant worth having and, having waited 15 years for it to reach the giddy height of 10ft or so, I'm determined to enjoy it.

Hemsley's Snowbell Tree at Hearne HQ complete with visiting bee. The flowers are nicely scented