Parrotia persica, Ironwood

Those who have seen the primeval forests of this unique tree in Iran and Azerbaijan, in the Elburz Mountains and by the Caspian Sea, describe enormous thickets where branches with flaking bark like planes, grey, cream and green, interlace and self-graft high in the air. In autumn the leaves turn colours from gold to purple, orange and scarlet. In late winter the canopy colours crimson with a million tiny flowers.

The parrotia (named in honour of a German doctor in the Russian army who climbed Mount Ararat) came to Kew Gardens from the Imperial ones in St Petersburg in 1846 – from which we can conclude that it is a thoroughly hardy plant. Less certain was whether to call it a tree or a bush; it is never seen, at least in cultivation, with a single tall trunk. Its many branches, or aspirant trunks, usually arch outwards and dip downwards, eventually forming an irregular dome as much as 70 feet across (and considerably less high). Its autumn colour is variable plant by plant and season by season.

Here at Saling Hall we have six specimens, five of them planted in the 1950s and one by me in 1988. One (from 1959, the upper picture) is almost an upright tree, reaching 35 feet but with five branches forming the crown. It colours yellow and orange. The 1988 plant (the lower picture) is an arching bush with a wonderful fauve palate of the richest colours intermingled.

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