We caught up with Caroline Bavey, our Garden and Landscape Manager to talk all about the connection between our Explorers Garden, the Snakebark Maple, and this year’s Spring Festival (春节) in China.
How is the Explorers Garden connected to the Year of the Wood Snake?
Caroline: “So we’re currently in the throws of the Spring Festival (春节) in China, and this year is the Year of the Wood Snake. I thought it was quite apt to talk about our China section, which is quite a big section of our garden, with a third of the entire garden being dedicated to the Himalayas.
There was a lot of wonderful Scottish explorers, and specifically the China section here in the Garden is dedicated to one called George Forrest, and we have a beautiful tree here in the garden called the Snakebark Maple, which he actually has a cultivar named after himself. He actually sent seeds back to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 1920, and actually, there is one, tree still alive in the Botanics from his original seeds that were actually sent back in the 1920s.
Now, originally, the tree was discovered by a Chinese national, who unfortunately is unknown. But it was then later introduced to the Western world by a French monk named Armand David. But what we’re talking about here in the garden is the cultivar ‘George Forrest’. He actually sent seeds back to the Royal Botanic Garden in 1920, and there is actually one tree still alive in the Botanics from those original seeds.”
Why is it called the Snakebark Maple?
Caroline: “So that’s a kind of the common name for the tree – its actual name in Latin is acer davidii. It is a beautiful maple tree, and the reason it was nicknamed the ‘snakebark’ is it actually looks like a green grass snake. When the trees are quite young, it’s got a smooth, grassy, snakeskin appearance.
The ones that we have are a beautiful, lush green, colouring at the moment. As it gets older, it tends to have a kind of grey silver lining to the bark, and it will kind of become more bark-like once it matures. So the one that you can see at the Royal Botanics, it’s very mature and it looks like your average tree bark. Still exceptional, but it looks like what you would draw at school and take a kind of a crayon drawing from.”
What else is special about the Snakebark Maple?
Caroline: “The spring is when the trees actually start to come into leaf, and actually where you get this amazing colour difference. The young shoots that are growing between the branches and going into the leaves (called the petioles), they’ll be a kind of red in colour, and so against the beautiful new leaf structures which are bright green, all you can see is the contrasting colours as you’re coming down through the Himalayan section, and then you’re drawn to this gorgeous, silky, bark, which you do have to touch (and there is an area that you can actually get to touch the tree as well).
A very happy Spring Festival to everyone who celebrates, and I hope there’s been lots of lovely red envelopes all around for you!”
You can see the Snakebark Maple in the Explorers Garden, which is open annually from 1 April – 31 October.