Heptacodium miconioides Rehder syn. Heptacodium jasminoides Airy Shaw; Caprifoliaceae, 七子花 qi zi hua (chin.), seven-son flower, **Sieben Söhne des Himmels**

Deciduous large shrub or small tree, up to 7m tall, native to China, cultivated as ornamental; bark of the trunk is papery and thin, light tan; petiole 1cm; leaf blade ovate, up to 15cm long, leathery, base obtuse to subcordate, apex acuminate; inflorescence a subpyramidal panicle of capitula; flowers white, fragrant, sepals 2-2.5 mm, equaling ovary at anthesis, corolla 1-1.5 cm \\
[[http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200022268]]

"...'Seven' is actually misleading, for the flowers in each capitulum are held in two rows of three clustered around a central bud, which is not a flower bud but in fact a continuation of the inflorescence axis, which will push up as the flowers fade and develop a new ring of six flowers, again around a central bud. Three such iterations have been observed." [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptacodium]]

"The similarity of the leaf veins with the tropical genus Miconia (Melastomataceae) determined the species name miconioides." [[https://www.bgbm.org/de/infotainment/der-sieben-soehne-des-himmels-strauch]]

"Fragrant, jasmine-like [with a clove-like touch, AK], creamy-white flowers in late summer are followed by persistent calyxes, which swell and turn red, lasting until October. The decorative bark peels off in yellowish-brown flakes." [[https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/351194/heptacodium-miconioides-tianshan-(-minhep-pbr)/details]]

"Jasmine-honeysuckle scent: Plants in this transitional group cannot clearly be classified as either jasmine or honeysuckle scents, but rather contain a balanced mixture of both flower families, with the jasmine note corresponding to French jasmine, Jasminum officinale. Representatives of this transitional group are Lonicera japonica and Heptacodium miconioides." \\
[Oschatz, Marie-Louise, and Karl-Georg Bernhardt. Duftpflanzen und Blütenduftfamilien im Duftgarten des Botanischen Gartens der Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, 2011, 140; in: Diaconu, Mădălina, ed. Sensorisches Labor Wien: urbane Haptik-und Geruchsforschung. Vol. 6. LIT Verlag Münster, 2011]

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Heptacodium miconioides (2023) [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/|CC BY-SA 3.0]], Author: Andreas Kraska