Puzzle flower in a Japanese temple

The first garden we visited in Kyoto belonged to the Tenryu-ji temple in Arashiyama. It was a sunny day and the light was becoming mellow as we walked through the garden. Near the upper end I took a photo of this flower. I’m pretty sure it is a magnolia, but I don’t know exactly why. I guess the shape and texture of leaves is one reason, but is it also something about the flower? Lots of magnolia flowers are more cup shaped, but I’m almost certain I’ve seen this shape of a flower somewhere else in the wild. Have you? Or are you absolutely sure that this isn’t a magnolia?

Susan Rushton points out that I was completely off-track. This seems to be the cultivar called Venus of a sweetshrub (genus Calycanthus). The sweetshrubs are not a speciose genus, having only three members. If it wasn’t for the many cultivars, they would be very easy to identify.

By I. J. Khanewala

I travel on work. When that gets too tiring then I relax by travelling for holidays. The holidays are pretty hectic, so I need to unwind by getting back home. But that means work.

13 comments

    1. That’s an interesting suggestion. Since there are only three species in the genus, I could just take a look at each. It’s certainly not the Chinese variety, just going by the shape of the flower. Could it be one of the north American varieties? I didn’t pay much attention to the separation between sepals and petals, but going by the buds that you see around the main flower, there could be a distinction. In that case it is not calycanthus. But I really should have taken a photo of the flower from below.

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      Reply

      1. Probably on the coast in British Columbia but the prairie provinces have a very dry as well as cold climate. They are quite likely down east around the lakes (Ont/Que) as well.

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