Not fifty feet away but on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, located in full sun at the lower end of the Mediterranean section, is an interesting plant of Azara celastrina D. Don (family Flacourtiaceae). This is the second mention of Flacourtiaceae in this issue (see Oncoba spinosa on the front page), but probably the first time that you have even heard the name! To be sure, the flacourts are mostly tropical species, although both Xylosum congestum, a commonly used hedge, and Olmediella betschlerana, the Guatemalan holly with holly-like leaves, are encountered in California horticulture.
Azara is a genus comprising mostly shrubs, named after the Spanish scientist J. N. Azara (1731-1804). This particular species is a native of Chile, where A. celastrina can be found growing at up to a 1000-meter elevation in the desert-mattoral transition (an area with Mediterranean-type vegetation) north of Santiago and the sclerophyll forest north of Valdivia. Both locations have semiarid climates and thin soils. In the wild, this plant may be three meters tall, although at MEMBG our specimens are neatly growing at half that height. The descriptor celastrina probably is derived from the Greek kelastros, meaning evergreen tree, but it also refers to something resembling Celastrus, a temperate climbing plant.
Leaves of A celastrina are somewhat tough, evergreen, and glossy, much like certain camellia leaves; they have a short petiole, and the blade is nearly elliptic in shape with an obtuse leaf apex. Leaves are alternate in arrangement along a bright red stem, which becomes light grayish during the second year and has prominent lenticels. All of the leaves are twisted so that the entire shoot is flattened (plagiotropic). If you take a superficial look at a young leaf, there appears to be a second smaller leaf on the stem, but this is actually a leaf-like stipule that soon abscises. The leaf margin is delicately scalloped due to the presence of minute, blunt teeth at intervals of every several millimeters. This is a modification of the type of tooth found in Flacourtiaceae and their relatives (such as the violet family, Violaceae). Paleobotanists have used leaf teeth like these to aid in identifying fossils of dicotyledons.
The plant is quite splendid when shoots are in full blossom, displaying splashes of yellow clustered along the stems. Each stalk contains half a dozen or more flowers. There are no petals in the flower of A celastrina (it is apetalous); instead, the showy attraction is created by about thirty bright yellow stamens, five light-green sepals, and a conspicuous green pistil with four minute stigma lobes positioned in the center. A set of nectaries surrounds the outer stamen bases, secreting nectar when the flower first opens (called anthesis) and while the filaments of the stamens elongate and pollen is released. Anthers blacken after the pollen has been released. The fruit is described as a blackish berry.
In cultivation, other species of Azara have been used as plants for evergreen hedges and espalier. This species, new to horticulture in Southern California, should also be added to the palette.