2009 Theodore Klein Plant Award Winner

xSinocalycalycanthus raulstonii 'Hartlage Wine'. common name Raulston's Allspice is a JC Raulston Arboretum Selection™. The comparison picture of a Raulston’s Allspice bloom with a bloom (the small one with small leaves in upper left) of the male parent, Calycanthus floridus, our native sweetshrub or Carolina allspice.

Hartlage Wine Sweetshrub is a robust grower (8’-10’ tall) with glossy deep green leaves and golden yellow fall color. Spring flowers of deep burgundy-red are highlighted with bits of yellow and offer a pleasant fragrance. Reblooms occasionally in summer. Full sun or part shade.

For more information read the JC Raulston Arboretum Friends of the NCSU Arboretum Newsletter Vol. 6 No. 1 article by Nancy Doubrava, Interpretive Specialist (you need to scroll down the newspetter to get to her article)

Where you will learn that "This unique intergeneric hybrid is the first successful cross between Calycanthus floridus, our native sweetshrub or Carolina allspice, and Sinocalycanthus chinensis, its rare Chinese counterpart." and that "Cuttings (of Sinocalycanthus chinensis) were obtained by J. C. Raulston, Ph.D., Director of the NCSU Arboretum from Gerald Straley, Ph.D., then curator of the Asian Collection at UBC Botanical Garden.  By 1991, the plant at the NCSU Arboretum was thriving at nearly six feet tall. One day while observing C. floridus in the Arboretum, it was noticed that although the flowers were very different, the fruits looked similar to those of S. chinensis.  Was it possible that these two different genera might be able to be successfully crossed?  Richard Hartlage, who was an undergraduate in Horticultural Science at NCSU working at the Arboretum, was asked to take on the project." Richard Hartlage is from Kentucky and an author (Bold Visions for the Garden, Fulcrum Publishing ) and an outstandingphotographer (Pots in the Garden and A Pattern Garden, Timber Press) After years of waiting one of the plants flowered and became xSinocalycalycanthus raulstonii 'Hartlage Wine'.

“Name changes may be based on different interpretations of the same data or the results of new research. In the case of Sinocalycanthus, it is new molecular research data that would indicate that Sinocalycanthus and ×Sinocalycalycanthus can all be lumped together in the genus Calycanthus. However, the name Sinocalycanthus is well established in both the botanical and horticultural literature. So if you are looking for the new and improved sweetshrubs, you may find them under either name. Here at the (Smith) Botanic Garden we’ve decided to label the Chinese wax shrub Calycanthus chinensis. To complicate matters, any name change would impact ×Sinocalycalycanthus raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine,’ which would no longer be an intergeneric hybrid but rather an interspecific (between two different species), hybrid with the name of Calycanthus × raulstonii ‘Hartlage Wine.’” Elaine Chittenden, The Botanic Garden of Smith College, Botanic Garden News, Spring 2006, pp. 8-9, <http://www.smith.edu/garden/Newsletter/newssp06.pdf>