Gardenia sp. (from China) prophouse coral-red berries that hold through

coral-red berries that hold through winter against the evergreen foliage

from a distance

Once widespread across southern China

the familiar red-maple signal that winter is loosening

and lovely backlit

Gardenia sp. (from China) prophouse coral-red berries that hold throughEvery collection has its unnamed treasures, and this gardenia is one of ours: a plant grown from seed gathered on Emei Shan, the great sacred mountain of Sichuan in southwestern China. The species has not been pinned down, but the plant is unmistakably a gardenia, upright in habit and clothed in long, narrow, glossy dark green leaves quite unlike the broad foliage of the common Cape jasmine. In the warm season the shrub opens single white flowers,