703. INDIGOFERA HOWELLII Brian Schrire, Susyn Andrews and ...

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Devon, the home of the late Dr Jimmy Smart. This shrub was then seven years old but had only been planted out near the Wisteria Pergola for six years. It had been a gift from Dick Banks in 1990 and by 2010 it was 3 × 3 m, having survived the hard winter of 2009–2010 without any harm even when the temperature dipped to −12 ◦ Cfor several days and the ground was frozen for at least two weeks. In this area it begins to flower from the end of May and continues until the end of October, with the main flowering period being from July to late October. A rooted cutting from Marwood Hill was planted in June 1998 in the garden of SA and BS in Kew. Today, this erect, singlestemmed shrub is 2.7 × 1.3 m. It is surrounded by other woody plants, and flowers profusely from May until the first frosts. To our knowledge I. howellii has the longest flowering period of any Indigofera. A plant (2000–3626) propagated from the Marwood Hill shrub was given to RBG Kew by SA in 2000 and this is planted against the wall of the Duchess Border, surrounded by part of the tender Lavandula collection. Coincidentally, W.J. Bean had collected herbarium specimens (K!) in mid 1925 from plants growing along the same wall, named as I. dielsiana Craib, and from the bed outside the nearby Melon Yard Gate as Indigofera sp. Both have been identified as I. howellii but no sources were indicated. Anon (1934) listed 15 taxa of Indigofera growing at RBG Kew. Most of these were from China and Japan and included I. potaninii. A later gathering was made by Professor T.T. Yü (1908–1986), a distinguished Chinese botanist and plant collector, in northern Yunnan, from Atuntze (now Deqin or Dequn) on Mt Miyetzimu, at c. 3000 m in October 1937, T.T. Yü 10572 (K!). Some seeds of this collection arrived at Kew from RBG Edinburgh in 1938 and herbarium specimens were collected in July 1944. They were initially named as ‘Indigofera potaninii’ Craib but latterly identified by BS as I. howellii. There is also a T.T. Yü collection Yü 10074 which is the holotype of the later published synonym I. emarginata Y.Y. Fang & C.Z. Zheng (see page 89). More recently, Indigofera howellii has been collected by the Kunming, RBG Edinburgh & Gothenburg Expedition to Yunnan in 1993, as 84 © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2011.
Fig. 4. Indigofera howellii: first year’s growth in the RHS Legume Trials, at Wisley in 2010. Photograph: Brian Schrire. KEG (B. Aldén et al.) 671 (E!), found in Diqing Prefecture, Deqin Co., in a damp side valley between Deqin and the Mekong River at 3100 m, 28 ◦ 28 ′ N, 98 ◦ 51 ′ E, growing in mixed forest. This collection was initially identified as I. monbeigii Craib, which is now a synonym of I. mairei Pamp. Masquerading as Indigofera heterantha was a plant (1969–17672) of I. howellii (K!) at RBG Kew. Located at the flagpole area, this shrub of unknown source has not survived. An interesting old living specimen of Indigofera howellii turned up in a private garden in Killiney, just south of Dublin in the late 1990s. At60yearsold,this2.4× 0.9–1.2 m shrub had thick, multiple stems and was collected by Mark Bence-Jones s.n. (Jebb & Andrews, 2000; F. Reid, pers. comm.). On September 11, 2007, the RHS Woody Plant Committee confirmed the Award of Merit to Indigofera potaninii following confirmation of the name. It had appeared before the committee as a hardy flowering plant for exhibition, exhibited by Rupert Eley of East Bergholt Place, Suffolk on August 5, 2003. Since then, for reasons explained © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2011. 85
Page 1 and 2: 703. INDIGOFERA HOWELLII Leguminosa
Page 3: Plate 703 Indigofera howellii chris
Page 6 and 7: as I. howellii (Anon, 1920). Farrer
Page 8 and 9: Fig. 2. A dinner for staff of the I
Page 10 and 11: ought by Sir Cennydd Traherne in 19
Page 14 and 15: Fig. 5. Indigofera howellii × pend
Page 16 and 17: above, the name of this species has
Page 18 and 19: to erect immediately after ovary. P

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