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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
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'Chaenomeles × superba' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Soon after the introduction of C. japonica in 1869 spontaneous hybrids began to occur between it and C. speciosa, but their mixed parentage was not at first suspected and they were put into the trade as forms of “Cydonia maulei”, which is the name under which C. japonica was first grown. The first of these to be recognised as a hybrid had been named var. superba, which by Rehder was made the type of the hybrid group C. × superba (Frahm) Rehd. To it belong many of the smaller chaenomeles grown in gardens at the present time.
Generally they are low, spreading shrubs to 4 or 5 ft high. In foliage they are intermediate between the two parents (leaves coarsely toothed in C. japonica, 1 to 2 in. long, obovate or rounded: finely toothed in C. speciosa, up to 31⁄2 in. long, ovate or oblong). In the character of the shoots they incline towards C. japonica (downy and rough the first year, warty in the second; in C. speciosa the young growth is smooth and glabrous or only slightly downy and the second-year twigs are smooth also). Colour ranges through the whole gamut from white, pink, and crimson to various shades of orange and orange-scarlet. The following is a selection of some of the better-known forms:
† ‘Nicoline’. – Flowers deep scarlet, large, opening widely and well displayed. Spreading habit. Raised in Holland by S. G. A. Doorenbos in 1953. Two others, dating from about the same time and very like this in the shape and colour of their flowers, are ‘Fascination’ (J. Mossel) and ‘Fire Dance’ (K. Verboom).
† ‘Pink Lady’. – Flowers rose-pink. Horizontally branched. Raised by W. B. Clarke in California.
Flowers of the unusual and attractive shade known as Chinese Coral (HCC 614/1); it grows to about 3 ft high. ‘Yaegaki’, a clone of Japanese origin, has flowers of the same colour, but they are double and the plant is of very dwarf habit.
An old variety, raised by Anthony Waterer around 1870; of low, spreading habit; flowers large, brilliant red, very freely borne.