One of the most unusual titles in the Miller Library collection is “A Virgin for Eighty years,” by Linda Eggins, a book about the genus Aucuba, and primarily one species, A. japonica. The reason for the title? It’s complicated.
This plant was introduced from Japan to English horticulture in the 1780s and became very popular for the different color patterns of the leaves and its ability to adapt in many garden and indoor settings. However, Aucuba is dioecious, having male and female flowers on different plants, and all the English plants were female. It was known to have bright red berries in its native range, but these did not develop without a male plant nearby. Japan had closed its border to European explorers and it wasn’t until a change in diplomatic policy occurred in the 1860s that a male plant could be obtained and introduced with great fanfare into English horticulture.
Eggins tells this engaging story and other aspects of this plant’s history in science and cultivation, including its reign as a high-status plant. This is contrasted with its fall in status in the early 20th century, and is now regarded as a plant that “languishes with an undeserved reputation as a car-park plant, a filler to bulk-out dark corners in unpromising positions.”
The last half of this book is an extraordinary effort to sort out the many cultivars that have been selected of Aucuba. Eggins, and her late husband, Howard Eggins, first established the British National Collection of this genus, which is now grown at the University of Birmingham.
Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Spring 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin