Hippophae

Plant Characteristics

Cultivation

Scientific Names

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Read about Hippophae in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Hippophae (Hippophaes, ancient Greek name of a spiny plant, possibly derived from hippos, horse, and pheos, a spiny plant, probably Poterium spinosum). Also spelled Hippophaes. Elaegnaceae. Sea BuckThorn. Ornamental woody plants grown for their silvery gray foliage and the brightly colored berries. Deciduous shrubs or trees with spiny branches; the young growth covered with silvery scales or stellate hairs: lvs. alternate, narrow: fls. dioecious, from the axils of last year's branches in short racemes, the axis of which mostly develops into a branchlet or thorn in the pistillate plant, but is mostly deciduous in the staminate one; staminate fls. sessile, with 2 valvate sepals and usually 4 stamens with short filaments; pistillate fls. short-stalked; the 1-ovuled ovary inclosed by a receptacle bearing 2 minute sepals at its apex, style filiform with a cylindric stigma: fr. drupe-like, with a bony ovate stone.—Two species in Eu. and W. and C. Asia. The sea buckthorns are suckering shrubs or small trees with spreading usually spiny branches clothed with silvery gray narrow and rather small foliage, with insignificant yellow flowers appearing in spring before the leaves and followed in the pistillate plant by small but numerous bright orange-yellow berries persisting through the winter. The common sea buckthorn is perfectly hardy North, while the Himalayan species is tenderer and but rarely planted. The former inhabits the sandy banks of rivers and the seashore and also the steppes of central Asia. It grows well in almost any kind of soil including limestone and saline soil; in poor sandy soil it remains shrubby and spreads freely by suckers and has therefore been used successfully for the fixation of shifting-sand dunes; in better soil it grows into a small tree. It also is used sometimes for hedges in Europe. The pistillate plant is strikingly handsome in autumn when covered with its orange berries, which often are so numerous as to weigh down the branches. To insure a good setting of berries it is necessary to plant one or a few staminate plants with each group of pistillate ones; the staminate and pistillate plants may be distinguished even without flowers or fruits fairly well by their habit, the former being of more upright growth, while the pistillate ones are more spreading and twiggy. The berries are somewhat poisonous and but rarely eaten by birds. Propagation is by seeds sown at once or stratified, by cuttings of mature wood in spring, and also by root-cuttings, suckers and layers. H. salicifolia, D. Don. Tree, to 40 ft.: lvs. lanceolate, acute, green above, white villous-tomentose beneath, 1 ½ -4 in. long: fr. orange, 1/5 in. long. Temp. Himalayas. Alfred Rehder. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

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