iMagnolia sprengeri/i 'Diva' and its relatives in China.

摘要

No magnolia has been shrouded in so much mystery as Magnolia sprengeri var. sprengeri 'Diva' introduced by plant hunter EH Wilson just over a hundred years ago. The story of its introduction as seed, and the amazing, rich rose-pink flowers borne on one tree only, at Caerhays in Cornwall, has been told over and over again. The most recent account is Gardiner (2007). This paper reports new facts about an old mystery. The first mystery is that, out of the 8 plants raised at Veitch's Coombe Wood Nursery in 1901/02 from Wilson's seedlot W 688, just one plant revealed rose-pink blooms when it first flowered in 1919. The rest were more-or-less white and not exceptional. The second mystery has been where to place this plant taxonomically. The third mystery is whether the mother tree in China was the only plant of this taxon, perhaps a chance hybrid of obscure origin or a mutation, or whether it was representative of a reasonably widespread population. The fourth mystery is that this magnolia from ~1300 m altitude in west Hubei has proved to be so hardy, even in continental North America. The taxonomic status, the distribution, and the variation in M. sprengeri over a wider area are being further studied by Kang Yongxiang and co-workers.