Viburnum setigerum

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit, Leaves - tea

The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked and has a sweet flavour, though there is very little flesh. The ovoid fruit is about 12mm long and contains a single large seed. The leaves are used as a tea substitute.

Where to Find It

It is a temperate plant. In southern China it grows in forests and scrub between 800-1,700 m above sea level. It suits hardiness zones 5-9. Arboretum Tasmania.

Asia, Australia, China*, Taiwan, Tasmania,

How to Identify

A shrub. It grows 1.5-3.5 m high and spreads 2 m wide. It loses its leaves during the year. The leaves are large and oblong and dark green. They are paler and woolly underneath. The leaves change colour in autumn. The flowers are small. The fruit are orange and red. They are oval.

How to Grow

An easily grown plant, it succeeds in most soils but is ill-adapted for poor soils and for dry situations. It prefers a deep rich loamy soil in sun or semi-shade. Best if given shade from the early morning sun in spring. This species is hardy to about -20°c. Plants are self-incompatible and need to grow close to a genetically distinct plant in the same species in order to produce fruit and fertile seed. There are some named forms selected for their ornamental value. 'Aurantiacum' has bright orange fruit.

Propagation: Seed is best sown in a cold frame as soon as it is ripe. Germination can be slow, sometimes taking more than 18 months. Seed harvested green — fully developed but not yet fully ripe — and sown immediately in a cold frame should germinate the following spring. Stored seed needs 2 months of warm stratification followed by 3 months of cold, and may still take 18 months to germinate. Prick seedlings into individual pots when large enough to handle, grow on in a cold frame or greenhouse, and plant out in late spring or early summer of the following year. Softwood cuttings taken in early summer in a frame should be potted individually once rooting begins and planted out the following late spring or early summer. Half-ripe cuttings, 5–8 cm long with a heel if possible, taken in July or August in a frame should be potted as soon as they start to root. These can be difficult to overwinter and are best kept under glass until the following spring. Mature wood cuttings taken in winter in a frame should root in early spring; pot when large enough and plant out in summer if sufficient new growth has been made, otherwise overwinter in a cold frame and plant out the following spring. Layering of the current season's growth in July or August takes 15 months.

Medicinal Uses

None known

Other Uses

None known Special Uses

Viburnum setigerum, the tea viburnum, is a plant in the family Adoxaceae that is native to China.

Notes

There are about 150 Viburnum species. Also put in the family Caprifoliaceae.

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