Curtis Botanical – Plate 6631 – Early Stachyurus / Japanese Spiketail

Original antique black-and-white print from Curtis's Botanical Magazine — Plate 6631.

A Japanese shrub that blooms in late winter — before the leaves emerge — producing long, pendulous chains of tiny pale yellow cup-shaped flowers that dangle like strings of pale beads. Praecox means 'early ripening' or 'precocious' — it blooms in February and March when almost nothing else is flowering.

Birth flower: February (blooms in February). Pacific NW (OR, WA) — a prized winter-blooming shrub in Portland and Seattle gardens.

Uncolored plate. Condition consistent with age of volume. Each print is a unique piece of botanical history, printed on paper aged over a century.

This plate originated with the Royal Horticultural Society and passed through Wheldon & Wesley, one of the great natural history dealers of the 20th century. We came into the archive by accident and have spent the time since trying to share it as widely as we can.