Pandorea jasminoides (Lindl.) K. Schum.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘For specimens of this strikingly beautiful Tecoma we have to thank Mr. Webster, gardener to Mrs. Huskisson, of Eartham. […] He informs us that it was raised from seeds sent thither from Moreton Bay. […] It is quite impossible that the enchanting delicacy and loveliness of its blossoms can fail to arrest the attention of every observer.  They combine a degree of elegance so truly fascinating, with such a depth and brightness of colour in the throat […] that the beholder is conscious only of admiration and delight. […] Besides the pleasing character of the flowers, the plant itself is a very handsome climber, of an exuberant mode of growth, and with noble green foliage.  We trust it will therefore no longer remain a scarce object, but contribute to the gaiety of every greenhouse which is large enough to admit of its being grown to its proper size.’  August, 1838.  [MB p.199/1839]. 

According to Johnson’s Dictionary introduced to Britain in 1830. ‘A climbing shrub of humble growth, a native of Moreton Bay, on the North-eastern coast of New Holland, where it was discovered by  the late Allan Cunningham, and named by him in Loudon’s “Hortus Brittanicus”.  Mr C. also introduced it to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, where it is treated as a greenhouse plant, and bears its lovely blossoms, milk-white with a deep rose-coloured eye, in the month of August.’  [BM t.4004/1843].  FC p.266/1837.  BR f.2002/1837.

History at Camden Park

Listed in all published catalogues [T.158/1843] and probably collected locally. 

William Macarthur wrote at length to Loddiges’ Nursery on 13th February 1848 on the best method of growing it.  ‘I cannot imagine why Tecoma jasminoides should not have become a more favourite plant.  Here it exceeds in beauty any climber I have seen with flowers abundantly when not two feet high and never ceases to produce its lovely flowers from the Spring until again checked by the frosts of winter.  Either you have not the right variety (there are two) or there must be some management in growing it.  Our mode of management is this.  After planting out it is first allowed to make a good start and then cut back either to be trained with one or several leaders, or made to keep as a dwarf, compact bush.  If the former the leaders are pinched off at every two feet to force out the laterals.  By a little management in this way the whole plant as it increases in height is made to cover itself with side shoots.  Every one of these laterals will produce a terminal raceme or cyme rather of flowers from 2½ to 3½ inches in diameter but if any of them are observed to be pushing too vigorously they are immediately shortened to two or more joints as if allowed to grow they give the plant a straggling habit and check of the shorter jointed flowering branches.  As soon as each has done flowering it is cut back to the first or second joint, the buds from which immediately break and in the course of a few weeks supply another succession of flowering branches.  In this manner the plant is kept with moderate compass, a dense mass of bright glossy leaves covered with the terminal clusters of flowers throughout the whole of the growing months.  In damp warm weather we have to prune them more or less every ten or fifteen days.  The variety we cultivated produces flowers of bright purplish pink (not white) which passes into deep purplish carmine in the throat.  It never seeds but I could send you plants.’  [MP A2933-1, p.172].  Macarthur made good on this promise on 1st February 1849, sending two plants.  [MP A2933-1, p.185].  This variety still grows at Camden Park.

Notes

Bignonia jasminoides Thunb. (1821) = Jacaranda jasminoides (Thunb.) Sandwith