Edgworthia chrysantha:
What is in a name? Everything, nothing, something inbetween? Are any of us anything without our stories? Only time will tell, but I suspect the answer is no.
The species chrysantha is the easy bit. The first part chrys is from the Greek for golden. Not xanthe, that means yellow. A subtle and not so subtle difference. John Chrysostom was the golden-tongued, golden-mouthed theologian. His writings are eloquent, although his logic at times is questionable. I had an argument once with someone who had called their daughter Xanthe, who claimed it meant golden not yellow. You can guess the rest. I won’t call the moon the sun in any situation. The antha refers to the flower. And yes, these golden flowers are flowering now and will until the end of March or even into April. The one pictured is in the garden of Twickenham’s Town Hall, Greater London.
The Genus, Edgeworthia is superficially straightforward. It was named in honour of an Anglo-Irish amateur botanist who worked for the East India company in the Nineteenth Century. These days he would be cancelled – too colonial, imperial, white, aristocratic, as if he could help his birth and context. Not even God can change the past. I can only assume he discovered the plant between the months of December through to March as it is entirely unremarkable when in leaf and not when in flower. Winter is its season when the flowers form and blossom on bare stems. It fills the air with scent and, although entirely unrelated to Chimonanthus praecox, Wintersweet, the flowers share a character. The scent drifts on the air, it is fizzy like sherbet, it is enticing the same insects perhaps? Moths, probably. Not much else is flying in the cold months. It entices me every time.
It has a synonym Edgworthia papyrifera and a common name ‘paper bush’ which point in the same direction. Its bark fibres have been used to make mitsumatu tissue in Japan and in combination with other plant-derived fibres to make washi and Japanese bank notes.
Traditional medicine has used the roots and flower buds to treat eye disorders and the bark and roots have anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. How many millions of plants did our ancestors eat through to discover those which killed and didn’t kill, those which were detrimental or beneficial? We walk in their shoes.
The plant itself will grow to 1.5m/5′ high and wide. It enjoys full sun or partial shade. A soil which is free draining yet moist, a soil rich in organic matter. It is intriguing rather than pretty and hence difficult to include in a planting plan.
thephilosophergardener 