[136] Escallonia rubra, Redclaws
Introduction
Escallonia rubra, Redclaws, is a South American plant with attractive red flowers, widely cultivated as a hedge plant.
It is sometimes just called Red Escallonia.
Other species of Escallonia, with red, pink or white flowers, are cultivated as hedge plants.
Taxonomy
Kingdom – Plants
Division – Vascular Plants
Class – Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Order – Escalloniales
Family – Escalloniaceae
Genus – Escallonia
Scientific Name – Escallonia rubra
It has about thirty scientific synonyms, all of which are Escallonia species or subspecies.
Many cultivated varieties are available.
Name
Escallion was an Eighteenth-Century Spanish traveller who discovered these plants. Rubra means red.
Description
Escalloniaceae is a small family of uncertain taxonomy that has been placed on its own in the order Escalloniales. Two other families have been merged with it, but it still only has seven genera and just over a hundred species About forty of these are species of Escallionia, which are all fairly similar to each other.
Escallionia rubra has attractive glossy, serrated evergreen leaves.
The prominent pink or red, trumpet-shaped flowers give the plant its name, Redclaws.
Habitat and use
All Escallonia are native to South America. Escallonia rubra comes from southern Chile and Argentina.
It is widely cultivated as a hedge plant and has naturized in Europe, the USA and New Zealand.
Other Escallonia species are also cultivated as hedges.
Other Notes
This is one of many species with attractive flowers that are cultivated as hedges so that their flowers are generally lost in regular pruning. This, of course, makes them more difficult to identify but I have found them in a few places locally.
See also
I won’t list all the hedge species but there are a few more to come.
The Species of Britain 