Despite a spectacular bloom with sprays of gold-coloured flowers in the spring, this relative of oak trees remains largely unknown in cultivation.
Delavay’s chinquapin is native to four provinces in southern China, where it is an arboreal constituent of the region’s mixed and broad-leaved evergreen forests. Introduced into Western cultivation in 1924 via George Forrest, my cursory searches for Castanopsis delavayi suggests it is present in only a small number of public and private collections. These include: JC Raulston Arboretum (Raleigh, North Carolina), Cornwall’s Caerhays Estate (at least according to Trees and Shrubs Online), the Mereweather Arboretum in Dunkeld, Australia, and the site of today’s photograph, Savannah’s Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens. Two plants grown from wild-collected seed were attempted at UBC Botanical Garden in the late 1990s, but both were recorded as dead as of 2001. I’ve advocated in the past that we should make another attempt, assuming we can source wild-collected material.
Fortunately, I did find one resource with close-up photographs of the flowers and oak-like fruits (I didn’t take any additional photographs, as I didn’t know I would probably never encounter it again and I was leading a tour). For your weekend browsing, visit Gardening in the Coastal Southeast by self-described obsessive gardener (and longtime horticulturist) Chuck Hubbuch (and on Instagram). The site is deep in content, with copious notes by Chuck on the plants in his plant lists, garden articles, and his travels. Even if you don’t garden in that part of the world, there’ll be something to learn, including Chuck’s observations and photographs of Castanopsis.