Escallonia illinita Presl

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var. pubicalycina Briq

Young stems and the veins on underside of leaf sparsely to densely clad with short hairs. Calyx-tube downy and minutely glandular. Such plants, which are known to have been in cultivation, are perhaps back-crosses of typical E. illinita with the natural hybrid E. illinita × revoluta (Sleumer, op. cit., p. 81).A notably viscid escallonia was in cultivation as long ago as 1825 as E. viscosa Forbes (Hort. Woburn, p. 231), a name which was not properly validated until 1900, when an illustration and description were provided by de Wildeman (Ic. Select. Hort. Thenensis, p. 65 and t. 16). In his monograph, Dr Sleumer has sunk this species in E. illinita, and there is no doubt that this judgement is botanically correct. But, as noted in previous editions, the plant grown as E. viscosa at Kew differed from the common run of E. illinita in the following respects: ‘It is laxer in habit; the panicles are longer, one-sided (instead of cylindrical); and the leaves and young shoots are much more sticky and resinous, especially in autumn, and much more scented. The most impressive peculiarity of this shrub, indeed, is its odour, even more suggestive of the pigsty than that of illinita, but intermingled with a resinous smell… So strongly are the shoots imbued with it that herbarium specimens, years after drying, still retain it. On living plants it is strongest on damp, still days.’E. illinita × E. rubra. – Hybrids of this parentage are fairly frequent in Chile where the two species are in contact and were introduced to cultivation in the 1830s. They have been grown under various erroneous names such as “E. resinosa” (correctly the name of an escallonia native to central S. America), “E. grahamiana” (a synonym of E. illinita), or “E. glandulosa” (a synonym of E. illinita and of E. rubra). To this hybrid group also belongs E. rubra var. albiflora Hook. & Arn. (though one specimen cited by these authors in their original description is E. leucantha). An escallonia cultivated in California and named E. × franciscana by Miss Eastwood is E. illinita × E. rubra var. macrantha. These hybrids have the resin-glands and odour of E. illinita but the stalked glands on the receptacle show the influence of E. rubra (the above is based on Sleumer, op. cit., pp. 139–140).