A Gardener’s Miscellany

This week it’s:

Laburnums and cytisus

Two related plants go under the Miscellany microscope

THIS week, I’m combining two plant genera into one Miscellany. They are related, and have some interesting stories connected with them!

Let’s start with laburnums, which are in flower now. These are garden trees known variously as ‘golden chain’ or ‘golden rain tree’. When I pass gardens with laburnums in full flower, they give me a real boost. Then there is the group of shrubs known as cytisus, one of the brooms. Few people could fail to notice a cytisus in full flower, covered with masses of pea-like blooms. There are both deciduous and evergreen types (although many have practically leafless stems). So let’s take a sideways look at them both…

The laburnum-cytisus graft hybrid

LABURNUM and cytisus are cousins – both are in the Fabaceae plant family (along with peas and beans, lupins, wisteria, sweet peas and hundreds more besides).

One day in 1825, in Vitry near Paris, nurseryman Jean Louis Adam grafted (today known as ) on to a trunk of a common laburnum () as an experiment. To everyone’s astonishment, the result was a curious tree – named x – that retained the characteristics of both its parents. In late spring, it has yellow laburnum flowers and purple cytisus flowers. It also produces a mix of yellow and pink-purple pea flowers that are specific to laburnocytisus.