A touch of China in Oban

Today was supposed to be wet, and tho' there was some rain this morning the sun has come out and I must get out and do a bit of planting this afternoon. 

I'm going to plant a couple of small tree ferns, Dicksonia antarctica, from SE Australia and Tasmania, and originally intended to plant them near my large specimen which has a trunk some four feet tall. There's not really room there tho', without the fronds (one day) blocking the path, so these will go on the slope beyond the garage. I have a small plant of Dicksonia fibrosa too, another tree fern but from New Zealand and its many surrounding islands, which will go out there somewhere as well, but maybe not today. (Actually I did, tho' I'm not sure it's the right place.) These three are all small plants without the smallest suggestion of a trunk, but one day . . . . !

My Blip today is of a wonderful climber, Ampelopsis delavayana, a native of West China from where it was originally introduced by Ernest Wilson in 1900. Ernest collected a vast number of plants from China and was known as Ernest 'Chinese' Wilson for that reason. My plant, however, though also grown from wild-collected seed, came from an expedition to Sichuan by Lord Howick in 1994. His Lordship kindly sent me his collecting notes: 

SICH 1465 AMPELOPSIS SP.
Collected on 7.10.94 at c.2720m from a deciduous climber to 5m through illicium, trifoliate leaf to 7x9cm, curved, pinkish petiole to 8cm, round dark purple berry, infrequent in sun on gravelly loam on a steep south-west facing cut over mountainside of lithocarpus, corylus, Illicium yunnanensis, populus, in rich secondary growth above Xiqi River above Bai Baiding Village on the northern flank of Luoji Shan, Xichang Co, Sichuan. 

I've not decided where to plant it yet, up a tree would be best.

Quote of the day:

Ernest 'Chinese' Wilson - "There are no happier folks than plant lovers and none more generous than those who garden."