Skimmia × confusa: Difference between revisions

Skimmia × confusa is a Skimmia hybrid.

Skimmia × confusa is a strongly aromatic shrub that typically grows between 0.5 and 3 meters tall. Young stems, about one to two years old, measure 3–5 millimeters in thickness and are green before aging into a yellowish-grey bark.^[1]

The leaves are narrow and elongated—ranging from oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic—and measure about 7.5–15 centimeters long and 2–5 centimeters wide. They have smooth edges, taper to a pointed tip, and narrow gradually toward the base. The texture is somewhat leathery. When dried, the upper surface becomes finely granular and shows about 10–15 pairs of lateral veins. The leaf stalk is short and not sharply defined, usually up to about 1.5 centimeters long, green, and sometimes faintly reddish brown.^[1]

The plant produces a large, pyramidal flowering cluster (inflorescence), which in male plants can reach up to 15 centimeters in both length and width. The flowers are unisexual and sweet-scented. Male flowers have five parts and creamy-white petals that stay partly upright at about a 45-degree angle; their anthers are orange. Female flowers have four or five parts and display fully open, white petals.^[1]

Fruiting is variable. In some years, the plant may form an infructescence with dozens of small, bright-red, flattened spherical drupes, most of which are sterile. Occasionally, one or more full-sized fruits develop, about 10 millimeters in diameter, globose, and containing a well-formed stone.^[1]

Before being scientifically described in 1987, Skimmia × confusa was frequently mislabeled as S. laureola. This was realized that to be a mistake when plants discovered in the wild were found not to match any of the hundreds of herbarium specimens. The combination of strongly scented foliage, red fruits (rarely borne), and strong-smelling leaves suggests that S. × confusa is a hybrid between S. japonica var.- japonica and S. anquetilia. Because S. japonica does not occur in the wild with either S. laureola or S. anquetilia–the two Skimmia species which have strongly scented foliage–S. × confusa is presumed to be of garden origin; S. laureola can be discounted as a parent species because it was not in cultivation when S. × confusa first arose. The male clones have five-parted and only partially opened flowers, which is otherwise seen exclusively in S. anquetilia. Both male and female individuals proved to be diploid (2n = 30), matching the chromosome number of S. japonica and S. anquetilia.^[1]