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ARS has released three new
cultivars of Tecoma guarume, a landscape shrub from the Trumpet Creeper
family: Tangelo (top), Miami Sunrise (middle), and Miami Sunset (bottom).
Photos courtesy of Alan W. Meerow, ARS. |
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Three New Tecoma Cultivars Add to Landscape Shrub
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By Alfredo Flores July 15, 2008
Three new cultivars of a shrub called Tecoma have been released
by Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
scientists in Miami, Fla. These fast-growing shrubs flower throughout the warm
months of the year, giving them great potential as landscape plants.
The three Tecoma guarume cultivars were developed by geneticist
Alan
Meerow and horticulturalist
Tomás
Ayala-Silva at the
National Germplasm
Repository, part of the ARS
Subtropical
Horticultural Research Station in Miami.
Tecoma includes14 species of shrubs and small trees from the
trumpet-creeper family, found in the Americas from the southern United States
through northern Argentina, and in Africa. Tecoma guarume is a
semi-deciduous shrub, which rarely reaches 10 feet in height, and typically has
yellowish-orange flowers. The three new cultivars are seedlings selected from
seed received in 2000 from Peckerwood Garden in Hempstead,
Texas.
One T. guarume cultivar, called "Miami Sunset," has
four-inch-long leaves and crimson-colored buds that open red to orange-red and
fade to reddish-orange as they age. A second cultivar, "Tangelo," has leaves
that are five to six inches long and flowers that are uniformly orange. It
produces abundant fruits and is very free-flowering. The third cultivar, "Miami
Sunrise," has leaves four to five inches long with nine leaflets each, and
flowers that open orange and fade to yellow with orange-yellow striations, with
very little fruit production.
All three cultivars are best suited for well-drained soils, regular
fertilization and full sun in the USDA Hardiness Zones 9A-11. No pest or
disease problems have been observed by Meerow or Tomas-Ayala, meaning there is
little or no need for pesticides.
The Miami repository is one of 18 repositories in the
National Plant Germplasm System,
and is in charge of maintaining the U.S. clonal collections of mango, avocado,
banana and plantain, tropical citrus and other tropical crops.
Small quantities of cuttings of each of the three new Tecoma
cultivars are available for research purposes through the NGR-Miami as
accessions PI 651040 (Miami Sunrise), PI 651041 (Miami Sunset), and PI 651042
(Tangelo).
ARS is a scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of
Agriculture.