Forsythia
Encyclopedia
Forsythia is a genus of flowering plant
s in the family Oleaceae
(olive family). There are about 11 species, mostly native to eastern Asia
, but one native to southeastern Europe
. The common name is also Forsythia; the genus is named after William Forsyth.
shrub
s typically growing to a height of and, rarely, up to with rough grey-brown bark
. The leaves
are opposite, usually simple but sometimes trifoliate with a basal pair of small leaflets, and range from in length and, rarely, up to long; the margin is serrated or entire.
The flower
s are produced in the early spring before the leaves, bright yellow with a deeply four-lobed corolla, the petals joined only at the base. These become pendant in rainy weather thus shielding the reproductive parts.
It is widely stated that Forsythia's flowers are able to produce lactose
- (the milk
sugar). Lactose is very rarely established in other natural sources except milk. However, the presence of lactose could not be confirmed . The actual fruit
is a dry capsule, containing several winged seed
s.
Sources:
A genetic study does not fully match the traditionally accepted species listed above, and groups the species in four clades: (1) F. suspensa; (2) F. europaea — F. giraldiana; (3) F. ovata — F. japonica — F. viridissima; and (4) F. koreana — F. mandschurica — F. saxatilis. Of the additional species, F. koreana is usually cited as a variety of F. viridissima, and F. saxatilis as a variety of F. japonica; the genetic evidence suggests they may be better treated as distinct species.
Forsythias are used as food plants by the larva
e of some Lepidoptera
species including Brown-tail
and The Gothic
.
Forsythia suspensa, the first to be noticed by a Westerner, was seen in a Japanese garden by the botanist-surgeon Carl Peter Thunberg
, who included it (as a lilac) in his Flora Japonica 1784. Thunberg's professional connections lay with the Dutch East India Company
, and F. suspensa reached Holland first, by 1833. In England, when it was being offered by Veitch Nurseries
in Exeter at mid-century, it was still considered a rarity. Not all the varieties of suspensa are splaying and drooping, best seen hanging over a retaining wall; an erect form found by Fortune near Peking in 1861 was for a time classed as a species— F. fortunei.
Forsythia viridissma, meanwhile, had overtaken it in European gardens. The Scottish plant-hunter Robert Fortune
"discovered" it— in a mandarin's garden of the coastal city of Chusan
(Zhoushan)— before he ever saw it growing wild in the mountains in Chusan's province, Zhejiang
.
Forsythia × intermedia, as its name suggests, is a hybrid of F. suspensa and F. viridissima, introduced in continental Europe about 1880. Repeated crosses of the same two parents have made reiterations of F. intermedia quite variable. A bud sport
of a particularly showy (spectabilis) form is widely marketed as F. × intermedia var. 'Lynwood' .
About the time of the First World War further species were discovered by plant hunters in China: F. giraldian (found in Gansu
, 1910) and F. ovata (collected from seed in Korea by E.H. "Chinese" Wilson
) have been particularly useful as seed parents in 20th-century American crosses.
(F. suspensa × F. viridissima) and Forsythia × variabilis (F. ovata × F. suspensa) have been produced in cultivation. Forsythia intermedia is a hybrid between F suspensa and F. viridissima. Many cultivar
s have been selected from this cross including dwarf and compact forms.
Forsythias are popular early spring flowering shrubs in garden
s and park
s. Two are commonly cultivated for ornament, Forsythia × intermedia and Forsythia suspensa. They are both spring flowering shrubs, with yellow flowers. They are grown and prized for being tough, reliable garden plants. Forsythia × intermedia is the more commonly grown, is smaller, has an upright habit, and produces strongly coloured flowers. Forsythia suspensa is a large to very large shrub, can be grown as a weeping shrub on banks, and has paler flowers. Many named garden cultivars can also be found. Forsythia is frequently forced indoors in the early spring.
Commercial propagation
is usually by cuttings, taken from green wood after flowering in late spring to early summer; alternatively, cuttings may be taken between November and February. Low hanging boughs often take root, and can be removed for transplanting. A common practice is to place a weight over a branch to keep it on the ground, and after it has rooted, to dig up the roots and cut the rooted part from the main branch, this can then be planted.
F. suspensa
is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs in Chinese herbology
. Forsythia sticks are used to bow a Korean string instrument called ajaeng
.
as a homeopathic remedy that some claimed would cure the fictional MEV-1 virus responsible for a pandemic.
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s in the family Oleaceae
Oleaceae
Oleaceae are a family containing 24 extant genera and around 600 species of mesophytic shrubs, trees and occasionally vines. As shrubs, members of this family may be twine climbers, or scramblers.-Leaves:...
(olive family). There are about 11 species, mostly native to eastern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, but one native to southeastern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The common name is also Forsythia; the genus is named after William Forsyth.
Growth
They are deciduousDeciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
s typically growing to a height of and, rarely, up to with rough grey-brown bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
. The leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are opposite, usually simple but sometimes trifoliate with a basal pair of small leaflets, and range from in length and, rarely, up to long; the margin is serrated or entire.
The flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s are produced in the early spring before the leaves, bright yellow with a deeply four-lobed corolla, the petals joined only at the base. These become pendant in rainy weather thus shielding the reproductive parts.
It is widely stated that Forsythia's flowers are able to produce lactose
Lactose
Lactose is a disaccharide sugar that is found most notably in milk and is formed from galactose and glucose. Lactose makes up around 2~8% of milk , although the amount varies among species and individuals. It is extracted from sweet or sour whey. The name comes from or , the Latin word for milk,...
- (the milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
sugar). Lactose is very rarely established in other natural sources except milk. However, the presence of lactose could not be confirmed . The actual fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
is a dry capsule, containing several winged seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s.
Species
- Forsythia europaea Degen & Bald. BalkansBalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
in AlbaniaAlbaniaAlbania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and SerbiaSerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
. - Forsythia giraldiana Lingelsh. Northwest ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. - Forsythia japonica Makino. JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. - Forsythia likiangensis Ching & Feng ex P.Y.Bai. Southwest China.
- Forsythia mandschurica Uyeki. Northeast China.
- Forsythia mira M.C.Chang. North central China.
- Forsythia koreana (Nakai) T.B.Lee. KoreaKoreaKorea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
. - Forsythia ovata Nakai. Korea.
- Forsythia suspensaForsythia suspensaForsythia suspensa is a flowering plant native to Asia. It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. Pinoresinol is a lignan found in F. suspensa.-Characteristics:...
(Thunb.) Vahl. Eastern and central China. - Forsythia togashii H.Hara. Japan (ShōdoshimaShodoshimais an island located in the Inland Sea of Japan. The name means literally "Island of Small Beans". There are two towns on the island: Tonoshō and Shōdoshima, comprising the district of Shōzu.The island is famous for its stages of Twenty-Four Eyes...
). - Forsythia viridissima Lindley. Eastern China.
- Forsythia × intermediaForsythia × intermediaForsythia × intermedia is an ornamental deciduous shrub of garden origin.-Description:The shrub has an upright habit with arching branches and grows to 3 to 4 metres high. The opposite leaves turn yellowish or occasionally purplish in the autumn before falling...
. Garden hybrid between F. suspensa and F. viridissima.
Sources:
A genetic study does not fully match the traditionally accepted species listed above, and groups the species in four clades: (1) F. suspensa; (2) F. europaea — F. giraldiana; (3) F. ovata — F. japonica — F. viridissima; and (4) F. koreana — F. mandschurica — F. saxatilis. Of the additional species, F. koreana is usually cited as a variety of F. viridissima, and F. saxatilis as a variety of F. japonica; the genetic evidence suggests they may be better treated as distinct species.
Forsythias are used as food plants by the larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e of some Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
species including Brown-tail
Brown-tail
The brown-tail is a moth of the family Lymantriidae. It is distributed throughout Europe.The wings of this species are pure white, as is the body, apart from a tuft of brown hairs at the end of the abdomen. The brown coloration extends along most of the back of the abdomen in the male...
and The Gothic
Gothic (moth)
The Gothic is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is distributed in temperate Eurasia.This species has a wingspan of 36–46 mm. The forewings are broader than most other noctuids, blackish with a network of fine white lines . The hindwings are grey. The species flies at night in June and July...
.
Garden history
Two species of forsythia are at the heart of the selected forms, for both species are variable, and garden hybrids: Forsythia suspensa and F. vridissima. "These two species are, as it were, the founder-members of the forsythia family" writes Alice Coats; they were the earliest species brought into Western gardens from the Far East and they have each played a role in the modern garden shrubs.Forsythia suspensa, the first to be noticed by a Westerner, was seen in a Japanese garden by the botanist-surgeon Carl Peter Thunberg
Carl Peter Thunberg
Carl Peter Thunberg aka Carl Pehr Thunberg aka Carl Per Thunberg was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. He has been called "the father of South African botany" and the "Japanese Linnaeus"....
, who included it (as a lilac) in his Flora Japonica 1784. Thunberg's professional connections lay with the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
, and F. suspensa reached Holland first, by 1833. In England, when it was being offered by Veitch Nurseries
Veitch Nurseries
The Veitch Nurseries were the largest group of family-run plant nurseries in Europe during the 19th century. Started by John Veitch sometime before 1808, the original nursery grew substantially over several decades and was eventually split into two separate businesses - based at Chelsea and...
in Exeter at mid-century, it was still considered a rarity. Not all the varieties of suspensa are splaying and drooping, best seen hanging over a retaining wall; an erect form found by Fortune near Peking in 1861 was for a time classed as a species— F. fortunei.
Forsythia viridissma, meanwhile, had overtaken it in European gardens. The Scottish plant-hunter Robert Fortune
Robert Fortune
Robert Fortune was a Scottish botanist and traveller best known for introducing tea plants from China to India.-Travels and botanical introductions to Europe:Fortune was born in Kelloe, Berwickshire...
"discovered" it— in a mandarin's garden of the coastal city of Chusan
Zhoushan
Zhoushan or Zhoushan Archipelago New Area; formerly transliterated as Chusan, is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Zhejiang province of Eastern China. The only prefecture-level city of the People's Republic of China consisting solely of islands, it lies across the mouth of the Hangzhou Bay,...
(Zhoushan)— before he ever saw it growing wild in the mountains in Chusan's province, Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
.
Forsythia × intermedia, as its name suggests, is a hybrid of F. suspensa and F. viridissima, introduced in continental Europe about 1880. Repeated crosses of the same two parents have made reiterations of F. intermedia quite variable. A bud sport
Bud sport
A bud sport is a part of a plant or tree, for example, a leaf, shoot or flower, which due to a genetic mutation clearly differs from the rest of the plant, and which can also be grafted to grow new plants which retain this genetic difference as a new cultivar....
of a particularly showy (spectabilis) form is widely marketed as F. × intermedia var. 'Lynwood' .
About the time of the First World War further species were discovered by plant hunters in China: F. giraldian (found in Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
, 1910) and F. ovata (collected from seed in Korea by E.H. "Chinese" Wilson
Ernest Henry Wilson
Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson , better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable English plant collector who introduced a large range of about 2000 of Asian plant species to the West; some sixty bear his name.-Career:...
) have been particularly useful as seed parents in 20th-century American crosses.
Cultivation and uses
The hybrids Forsythia × intermediaForsythia × intermedia
Forsythia × intermedia is an ornamental deciduous shrub of garden origin.-Description:The shrub has an upright habit with arching branches and grows to 3 to 4 metres high. The opposite leaves turn yellowish or occasionally purplish in the autumn before falling...
(F. suspensa × F. viridissima) and Forsythia × variabilis (F. ovata × F. suspensa) have been produced in cultivation. Forsythia intermedia is a hybrid between F suspensa and F. viridissima. Many cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s have been selected from this cross including dwarf and compact forms.
Forsythias are popular early spring flowering shrubs in garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
s and park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
s. Two are commonly cultivated for ornament, Forsythia × intermedia and Forsythia suspensa. They are both spring flowering shrubs, with yellow flowers. They are grown and prized for being tough, reliable garden plants. Forsythia × intermedia is the more commonly grown, is smaller, has an upright habit, and produces strongly coloured flowers. Forsythia suspensa is a large to very large shrub, can be grown as a weeping shrub on banks, and has paler flowers. Many named garden cultivars can also be found. Forsythia is frequently forced indoors in the early spring.
Commercial propagation
Plant propagation
Plant propagation is the process of creating new plants from a variety of sources: seeds, cuttings, bulbs and other plant parts. Plant propagation can also refer to the artificial or natural dispersal of plants.-Sexual propagation :...
is usually by cuttings, taken from green wood after flowering in late spring to early summer; alternatively, cuttings may be taken between November and February. Low hanging boughs often take root, and can be removed for transplanting. A common practice is to place a weight over a branch to keep it on the ground, and after it has rooted, to dig up the roots and cut the rooted part from the main branch, this can then be planted.
F. suspensa
Forsythia suspensa
Forsythia suspensa is a flowering plant native to Asia. It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. Pinoresinol is a lignan found in F. suspensa.-Characteristics:...
is considered one of the 50 fundamental herbs in Chinese herbology
Chinese herbology
Chinese Herbology is the theory of Traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in Traditional Chinese medicine ....
. Forsythia sticks are used to bow a Korean string instrument called ajaeng
Ajaeng
The ajaeng is a Korean string instrument. It is a wide zither with strings made of twisted silk, played by means of a slender stick made of forsythia wood, which is scraped against the strings in the manner of a bow...
.
Cultural references
Forsythia appears in the 2011 movie ContagionContagion (film)
Contagion is a 2011 American medical thriller disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film has an ensemble cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Bryan Cranston. Contagion follows the rapid progress of a lethal...
as a homeopathic remedy that some claimed would cure the fictional MEV-1 virus responsible for a pandemic.