COLORED FOLIAGE SHRUBS
If Hawaii does not have an autumn season when all the leaves turn red,
it has, nevertheless, certain plants which suggest autumn all the year
round, with their gorgeously colored foliage. Brilliant tones of red,
orange and gold appear perennially in the leaves of many shrubs, while
others are more delicately colored in tints of pink, cream and
yellow-green. Still others hold very dark shades of maroon, crimson and
purple. On most of these plants the flowers are small and inconspicuous,
as if the colored leaves took their place in interest.
SNOW BUSH
_Phyllanthus nivosus Bull_
_Variety roseo-pictus_
A mass of small, delicate leaves, pale pink and light green in color, on
a loose, graceful shrub, is the Snow bush. It is well named, the effect
of the frosty coloring being as if a light fall of snow had touched the
leaves. While some plants carry only the light and dark green leaves,
others show a rosy coloring in the new growth. This variety is
appropriately known as roseo-pictus. The color is strongest in the young
parts, the leaves tending to turn to a more even green as they become
older. In some, the pink color turns to a dull red. The leaves are
rounded in form, about an inch and a half or two inches in length, and
grow alternately on the stem. The latter is dark red, with a tendency
toward angularity.
Small greenish flowers sometimes hang from long stems in the axils of
the leaves, the male and female flowers being separate.
The plant is a native of the South Seas and a member of the Euphorbia
family. It is one of Hawaii's most attractive and colorful shrubs being
often used as a hedge plant. (Plate X)
CROTON
_Codiaeum variegatum Blume_
Leading in interest among the colored foliage shrubs in Hawaii is a
large group of plants commonly called the Crotons. This name, however,
properly belongs to a quite different plant but is used generally by
nursery men for this Codiaeum.
Although these Crotons have an almost endless variety of leaf form and
color, they all belong to a single species, the difference in appearance
being only a matter of horticultural variation. The plants are natives
of Malaysia and the Pacific islands, and are members of the Euphorbia
family.
To illustrate the wide variations in the Croton leaves, specimens of
seven different plants are shown in the upper right hand corner of Plate
X and one more, with spiral leaves, is shown in the lower left hand
corner. These eight are perhaps the ones most often seen in Honolulu,
but they do not exhaust the local list, and botanical books name many
more varieties.
Croton shrubs vary in size, but most of them grow ten or twelve feet
tall. Their colors are brightest when growing in full sunlight. Croton
leaves remain fresh for some time after they are cut, so that they lend
themselves to unusual decorations. The proper name, Codiaeum, may have
been derived from the Greek word for head, suggesting that the leaves
were used to make crowning wreaths.
The Croton flowers are small and white, growing in slender racemes in
the axils of the leaves. There are separate male and female flowers.
ERANTHEMUM
_Pseuderanthemum atropurpureum_ (_Bull_) _Radlkofer_
(_Erantbemum purpureum_)
A shrub which might be casually mistaken for one of the Crotons, because
of the rich coloring of its leaves, is called Eranthemum. The leaf
colors are, however, purplish, rose and pink, hues that do not occur in
the Crotons. These plants vary greatly among themselves, some having
leaves that are mottled in green and white, others with colors that
range through the pinkish purples to dark maroon. There is a tendency
for the young leaves to have the brightest colors and to turn green as
they grow older. The leaves are opposite, strongly veined and rather
unevenly margined. The plant belongs to the Acanthus family, and is a
native of the South Sea islands. (Plate X, 3)
A variety of the purple is the _eldorado_, a horticultural variation, as
bright and sunny in its green and gold coloring as the former is dark
and rich, deserving its name of eldorado, the golden. The pointed leaves
are margined and blotched in bright yellow, usually with yellow veins.
They grow in opposite pairs and have a tendency to appear in bunches
near the ends of the stem. The new leaves are in two tones of yellowish
green, the more striking coloration of clear yellow developing as they
age. (Plate X, 4)
There is another Eranthemum, bearing purple and white flowers,
illustrated in plate VI.
PANAX
_Polyscias guilfoylei Bailey_
(_Nothopanax guilfoylei, Cogniaux and Merrill_)
Visitors to Hawaii are always interested in knowing the name of the
commonest hedge plant, a tall slender shrub with grey perpendicular
stems and leaves that usually are edged in white or pale green. This is
the Panax, a native of the Pacific Islands and a member of the Aralia
family.
This shrub is probably one of the most successful hedge plants in the
world, since it has few branches and these tend to grow almost straight
upward and the foliage is carried right down to the ground. There are
several varieties, differing slightly in the form and coloring of
leaflets. Some are a flat green, others are edged in white or yellow, or
the reverse. All tend to have irregular toothed margins. The leaves are
compound, the leaflets opposite, the stems clasping the branch.
Besides the common hedge plant there are a number of Panax varieties in
Hawaii, usually grown as specimen or greenhouse plants. One is very fine
and dainty, with deeply cut, irregularly shaped leaves. Another is curly
and still another is a giant, with leaves eight inches across.
The Panax very rarely flowers. (Plate X)
BEEFSTEAK PLANT
_Acalypha wilkesiana J. Mueller_ (_of Aargau_)
A plant with bright red foliage, which might easily be taken for one of
the Crotons is really an Acalypha, a relative of the striking Chenille
plant illustrated in Plate VIII. The leaves of this plant are large and
tend to a triangular form. They are basically a bronzy green color, with
spreading blotches of pink, red and brown, but the total effect of the
plant is one of bright red. These shrubs grow ten feet high and are
sometimes used for hedges, being always conspicuous objects on the
street. There are a number of other varieties besides the one with the
bright foliage, one having dull rose patches on bronzy leaves.
Insects are attracted to these leaves so that often they are full of
holes and sometimes they are reduced to lacy outlines.
Flowers are rather inconspicuous but of two kinds, the male and female.
The former appear as small upright spikes of reddish tufts which are the
pistils; staminate flowers are brownish and drooping and suggest little
rat-tails.
The Acalyphas are members of the Euphorbia family and _A. wilkesiana_ is
a native of the Pacific Islands. (Plate X)
CARICATURE PLANT. MORADO
_Graptophyllum pictum Griffiths_
People with good imaginations can see pictures in the yellow or white
markings on the green leaves of the Caricature plant. No two leaves are
ever quite alike but the "picture" appears always in the center of the
leaf rather than along the margins. The leaves are a pointed oval in
shape, smooth and rather leathery. They grow in opposite pairs. This
plant, too, often is taken casually for one of the Crotons. The shrub
will become six or eight feet high.
The flowers are small, tubular and dark red. The original home of the
Graptophyllum is not known, but it grows widely in the tropics and is
popular in India. It belongs to the Acanthus family. (Plate X)
There is another variety with leaves of deep, purplish red and bronze,
on which the markings are in a lighter shade.
OTHER COLORED FOLIAGE PLANTS
In Chapter VIII will be found described a number of other plants with
colored foliage which are not, however, shrubs.