Trees worth a second look

American Forests, Wntr, 2005 by Ketzel Levine

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I don't mean to start a chauvinist landslide in favor of reclassifying the Doug-fir. But it is odd that a dozen or more plants exist which, though different enough to be given their own exclusive genera, were not quite different enough to get their own names.

Pseudocydonia sinensis, the Chinese quince, suffers from all sorts of nomenclatural baggage. You can't really call it a false quince because its fruit are indeed quince, just not the variety cultivated for preserves (or for wine, candy, juice, or even pickles, as favored in Japan). Instead, its fruits are far more useful for playing that early-adolescent contact sport, Pass the Orange; they're big and oblong--a good shape for neck-hugging--not to mention heavy and hard.

And though P. sinensis flowers prettily (albeit subtly and sparsely) in pink, you can't call it a flowering quince, because that name's been taken too. Flowering quince is Chaenomeles, that dense, thorny, spring-blooming shrub that comes in all those incomparably rich and tarty hot colors.

But in winter, when its namesakes are downright boring, P. sinensis glows with exfoliating bark. This handsome creature is right up there with the best of the mottled crew, in tones as warm as Stewartia and in patterns suggestive of lacebark pine. Stunning visually, it's also tactually irresistible, with a fluted trunk that adds rhythm to its changing surface of warm browns, olive greens, and pearly grays.

This is a small tree with a dense, rounded crown and impressive peach to red leaves in late fall when grown in full sun. Its large April flowers are the color of apple blossoms, its late-spring peeling reveals chrome-yellow skin, and its magnificent fall fruits are a light lemon yellow (only the color is light; you don't want to be under them when they fall). Though these trees are easy to grow, you'll need a good eye for pruning, since young ones are awkward and need shaping. What you'll end up with for your labors is an increasingly handsome specimen, a prince of a plant denied a worthy name.

CRYPTOMERIA JAPONICA 'SPIRALIS'

My father's mother had wavy hair that fit like a helmet. My mother's mother wore hers in a soft Gibson girl pile. Consequently, the nostalgic plant name 'Granny's ringlets' doesn't strike a familiar chord, though it does conjur up a rather dissonant picture of both my grandmas in dreadlocks. Oy!

I suspect that is not the image that inspired the common name for Cryptomeria japonica 'Spiralis,' a richly textured Japanese cedar with curly rings reminiscent of what (someone's) granny used to wear. The effect is created by spirally curved, inward-pointing needles that twist covetously around the plant's flexible stems--cascading locks on a seemingly restless tree.

In fact, C. japonica 'Spiralis' is the very paradigm of stability, with a body so dense and spongy you could confidently fall into its arms. The plant encourages that kind of interaction because it's just so tactile, its gold-braided limbs and twisted fringes begging to be touched.