TPP is a plant collector, and oft times pushing the envelope on cold hardiness. This winter the low temperature was -15 F (-26 C), and several plants surprised TPP with their cold hardiness. This one is included in the list of uncertain cold tolerance, but the smallish shrub emerged in damaged and is now flowering for the first time. TPP has seen it in flower before at the Missouri Botanical Garden, but never north of that. So this is really a special flowering event here in northern Lincolnland. There are a number of genera that are disjunct between eastern North America and eastern China. Calycanthus floridus, Carolina sweet shrub, and Sinocalycanthus chinensis, Chinese sweet shrub both are now placed in the same genus by some taxonomists; they are in their own family. The hybrid between these two species if becoming more familiar in horticultural circles, and TPP has all three. The flowers have many parts, spirally arranged, and sometimes grading into one another (see link above). At any rate here's the somewhat rare Sinocalycanthus flower showing both pinkish and yellow waxy tepals surrounding stamens and pistils. Count us as a happy camper.
RFK Jr. is not a serious person. Don't take him seriously.
2 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience