Question

Which plant is described by these clues? Each miniature tubular flower opens four rounded lobes but arms itself with only two {stamens}, a spare arrangement that betrays its botanical kin. The simple evergreen leaves are set in exact opposite pairs, every node carrying two blades face to face. The glossy dark leaves are unusually small for the group, scarcely 0.5 to 1 inch (1.3 to 2.5 cm) long, their margins lined with fine sharp teeth. Its botanical name welds the Greek word for scent to the Greek word for flower, a fair summary of what it offers a garden. In the first warm weeks of spring, clusters of four to eight little white trumpets open along the previous year's wood. The small white flowers make almost no visual show, yet their sweet jasmine-like perfume carries clear across a garden in still air. After bloom the flowers give way to small blue-black {drupes} about 0.3 inch (8 mm) across, each holding a single hard stone. It grows wild in the mountain forests and scrub of southwestern China at elevations of 5,000 to 10,000 feet (1,500 to 3,000 m). In cultivation it builds a dense mounded evergreen shrub, wider than tall at 4 to 8 feet (1.2 to 2.4 m) high and 6 to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 m) across, on gracefully arching branches. Gardeners often mistake it for a larger relative planted as a holly substitute, but its leaves are far smaller and it scents the air in spring rather than autumn. The species epithet honours Pere Jean-Marie Delavay, the French missionary-botanist who collected it in Yunnan in 1890 and sent it home to Paris.

Accepted Answer

Osmanthus delavayi

Name That Plant #025