Helwingia japonica

Helwingia japonica is part of a group of Asiatic bush species well adapted to cool shade, still little known to gardeners. All helwingias have in common an unusual flowering habit, which emerges directly from the central vein of the leaves. This one, deciduous and perfectly hardy, will lose its leaves in winter and maintain a modest size well suited to small spaces and pot cultivation. Its generous foliage is not without appeal: it consists of beautiful, rather rounded, almost wavy leaves, in a beautiful shiny green. This bush will thrive in any cool soil, even alkaline.

Helwingia japonica - Japanese Helwingia - belongs to the botanical family of Helwingiaceae. It is native to Japan and China, where it grows in forests, woods and groves, in valleys, on slopes, along streams and paths. Of medium growth, this bushy shrub measures about 1.50 m (5 ft) in height and 90 cm (35 in) in width at maturity. Its mature branches are covered with a smooth dark brown or grey-black bark, while the young ones are green. From spring they bear papery, shiny, widely lanceolate, dentate and ciliate leaves, with prominent veins, 8-9 cm (3.1-3.5 in) long and 6-7 cm (2.4-2.8 in) wide. Their colour ranges from pale green to greyish-white and glaucous green, turning yellow in autumn. Flowering takes place in May-June. This epiphytic plant displays a rarely observed botanical curiosity, namely that its flowers are born in the centre of the leaves. This morphology results from a fusion between the flower peduncle and the leaf peduncle. The floral buds, gathered in clusters and emerging from the central vein of the leaf, open into small greenish-white flowers. Being dioecious, a male and a female plant are necessary to obtain fruiting in the form of small black berries, evoking pearls placed in the centre of the leaves.

This Helwingia, very decorative thanks to its foliage, will bring and air of fantasy to semi-shaded and cool areas of the garden. It will be ideally placed at the forefront of a shrub border, in the company of plants that appreciate the same environments: Cornus kousa, sarcococca, azaleas and rhododendrons in acidic soil, mahonias and green or golden-leaved hollies in neutral to slightly alkaline soil. Plant it also at the back of a shady perennial border with tall Hostas, black cohosh, Heucheras, rodgersias, Caucasian forget-me-nots or a Knotweed.

The genus Helwingia was named in honor of Georg Andreas Helwing (1666-1748), a German pastor and botanist who discovered and described numerous Prussian plants, including Pulsatillas.