Russelia sarmentosa Jacq.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘The Russelia multiflora sends up many long simple stems which are unable to support themselves without assistance, and produce their fine scarlet flowers in great abundance in close whorls, towards their extremities.  It appears to us to be an undescribed species, differing in several respects, both from the sarmentosa of Jacquin and the rotundifolia of Cavanilles; in the former of these the number of flowers on the same peduncle is only three, in the latter the leaves are nearly round, cordate, and quite sessile, and flowers grow in long simple racemes, not verticillate.  The colour appears, from the description, to be nearly the same in all three.’  [BM t.1528/1813].  Introduced to Britain in 1812.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

The first reference is as a desideratum to James Backhouse, 10th April 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.136].  It was also included among desiderata in a letter to John Lindley dated 15th February 1848 [MP A2933-1, 157] and to Kew at about the same time [MP A2933-1, p.165].  Macarthur’s copies are not endorsed ‘arrived’.  It could have been obtained by 1848 because it is omitted from an amended list of desiderata sent to Sir William Hooker on 1st February, 1849 ‘as I have recently received from Loddiges many of the plants in a list of desiderata I forwarded last year.’  [MP A2933-1, p.177].  It was not included in lists of desiderata sent to Loddiges’ in 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.147] and 1848 [MP A2933-1, p.172].  However it was requested of Lindley again on 1st February, 1849 [MP A2933-1, p.182a].

Notes