Dichroa febrifuga Allen Bush Cloud Mountain Farm in Washington

Cloud Mountain Farm in Washington

Upright and clean

each cradled in a prickled husk

so site where flower and fruit can both be enjoyed

China has cultivated Camellia oleifera for over two thousand three hundred years for the oil pressed from the seeds

Dichroa febrifuga Allen Bush Cloud Mountain Farm in WashingtonFew garden shrubs carry a resume like Dichroa febrifuga. In the ground this is a handsome, medium evergreen with lacecap heads of small blue flowers in late spring and, better still, clusters of berries in fall that ripen to an almost unreal iridescent, metallic blue, the kind of structural color usually reserved for beetles and tropical birds. A relatively recent introduction from China, the plant sits close enough to Hydrangea, in the family