Leycesteria formosa
Beautiful Leycesterie ( Leycesteria formosa )
The Beautiful Leycesterie ( Leycesteria formosa ) is a shrub from the family of Honeysuckle ( Caprifoliaceae ) with 4 to 13 centimeters long, leaf blades, white to pink buds and red berries. The natural range of the species is in China, the Indian subcontinent and Indochina. In parts of Europe and Australia, the species was naturalized. It is often used because of the pretty flowers and the remarkable fruit jewelry as an ornamental shrub.
Description
The Beautiful Leycesterie is a 1 to 5 meters high, upright shrub with hollow branches and pressed hairy or sometimes glandular- hairy, green and initially frosted branches. The leaves have a 5 to 15 millimeters long, pressed hairy or sometimes glandular hairy stem. The leaf blade is ovate to lanceolate, 4-13 cm long and 2-6 cm wide, acuminate to caudate - acuminate, with wedge-shaped to almost heart-shaped base and a ganzrandigen or toothed, sometimes irregularly wavy leaf margin. Both sides are bald or hairy pressed sparse.
The inflorescences reach lengths of 3 to 10 inches and grow terminal or in the axils of 1.5 to 3.5 centimeters long, pupurvioletten bracts. They are composed of one to ten whorls each with two opposite, enveloped by bracts, dreiblütigen cymes. The sepals are at the base, often grown together to the middle and also pressed or sometimes glandular hairy. The sepals are lanceolate to linear, sometimes triangular, 1-9 mm long. The corolla is white to pink, sometimes purple, funnel-shaped, 1.2 to 1.8 inches long and hairy outside. The Corolla lobe are roundish - ovate and about 5 millimeters long. The stamens are slightly shorter to the same length as the petals. The fünffächrige ovary is oblong, 3-4 mm long, densely glandular hairy. The style is bare and is about the petals out. As fruits red and black violet later, ovate to nearly round, 5-7 millimeters by measuring, berries are formed with preserved calyx. The numerous seeds are brownish, broadly elliptic to oblong, slightly compressed and about 1 millimeter long. The Beautiful rare flowering from May Leycesterie usually from June to September, the fruits ripen from August usually from September to October.
The chromosome number is 2n = 18
Occurrence and habitat requirements
The natural range is in China to the west of Guizhou, in the west of Sichuan, Yunnan in southwestern and southern Tibet; in northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and North Eastern Pakistan and northern Myanmar. In the Azores, Australia, New Zealand and the UK and in southern Europe the species was naturalized. The Beautiful Leycesterie grows in forests, forest edges and in bushes, in China at altitudes of 110-3500 meters on fresh, mildly acidic to mildly alkaline, sandy- loamy to loamy, moderately fertile soil in sunny hot locations. The species is sensitive to frost.
System
The Beautiful Leycesterie ( Leycesteria formosa ) is a species in the genus Leycesterien ( Leycesteria ). This is in the family of Honeysuckle ( Caprifoliaceae ) assigned to the subfamily Capri Folio ideae. The species was described in 1824 by Nathaniel Wallich first time scientifically. The genus name Leycesteria reminiscent of William Leycester (1775-1831), a British Chief Justice of India and promoter of botany. The specific epithet formosa comes from the Latin word meaning " beautifully designed " or "beautiful".
Use
The Beautiful Leycesterie is often used because of their decorative flowers and fruit of remarkable jewelry as an ornamental shrub.