Vireyas Culture

Glen Jamieson October 2004

Speaker Biography

Glen has been a research scientist for 20 years with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He spent 5 years in the Maritime Provinces and the past 15 years in British Columbia at the Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo. He became interested in growing vireyas in his large greenhouse about five years ago. He travelled south to California and Oregon to talk with Vireya growers, and he has been successfully growing vireya ever since in Nanaimo. David Ballantyne is a founding of the Victoria rhododendron Society.

Glen Jamieson from the Mount Arrowsmith Rhododendron Society gave an introduction to Vireyas, divided into four parts. He began by pointing out the range in appearance of the tender rhododendrons he had brought from his greenhouse. The variety included tiny heather like plants from the high montane zones (like R. ericoides), to the small leaf plus small bell like flowers of the hanging basket type (Saint Valentine), long slender grass like leaves (like R. stenophyllum) to the large leaf similar to the hardy rhododendrons but covered with gold dust which are the scales. These vireyas were all in small containers in a medium of chunky perlite, small bark chips and peat moss, and very dry! The main difference in growing these rhododendrons is that they are epiphytic and cannot tolerate being frozen.

The second part of his talk was the history of cultivation and geographical locations of vireya. He showed maps of "Vireya Land" which basically include the area from the tip of Australia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, (Mount Kinabalu), Sabah, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Vietnam and Taiwan. Interestingly one species each in the outer range of vireyas: one R. lochaie in Australia, in Vietnam, R. rushforthii and one in Taiwan (R. kawakamii) while the bulk of species is found in Papua New Guinea on isolated mountain tops and Sulawesi, Indonesia. Vireyas consist of one third of the species in the rhododendron family with over 300 species and counting, with each discovery!

Glen spoke about early exploration of these geographical regions brought with it grave dangers of malaria, head hunters, inaccessibility and the difficulties of finding seed in plants which do not have a definite flowering season, plus the seed having a short viability. Although vireyas were the first rhododendrons to be collected for wealthy enthusiasts with greenhouses in Great Britain, the discovery of the wealth of plant life, including hardy rhododendrons in China, drove people to mostly abandon the early efforts of vireya growing and to embrace rhododendrons which were much more showy and grew outside. So until Dr. Sleumer in the 1960's and the Rev. Cruttwell in Papua New Guinea, plus the fact that during World War II air runways were built in the area, very little more had been done with vireyas. Dr. Sleumer made it his life work to classify these exotic plants and he placed them into the following subsections: Albovireya, Malayovireya, Phaeovireya, Pseudovireya, Siphonovireya, Solenovireya, Vireo. So for sixty years interest has been building and many hybrids are being registered (many as Glen said are F1 crosses or the first generation of the cross) Places where vireyas are thriving are in New Zealand, Hawaii, California and Florida. Glen wants Vancouver Island to be included in that list and to that end he is supplying the Milner Gardens with vireyas from his large collection so that people are exposed to the beauty of this part of the rhododendron family.

The third and fourth parts of his talk were the slides on species vireyas (of which he kindly gave each attendee a list), then hybrids available, and the last part which I found most interesting was showing the two parent vireyas and their new offspring. No wonder hybridizing is so exciting! For people who want to further whet their appetite for vireos, go to http://www.vireya.net/ to Chris Callard's exceptional website. For those who bought Glen's plants at bargain prices, good luck. Don't do as I have done and over-water!!

The Rhododendron on the Poster for the ‘Royal in Scotland’

Dave Ballantyne's talk was on chlorophyll fluorescence in Azaleas and Rhododendrons and the effects of temperature on the forcing into flower, the subject of his poster he presented at the Royal Edinburgh Rhododendron Conference in 2002. As I am not a scientist I am not able to repeat the information on the fourteen slides Dave presented but one of the slides I found most interesting was the box that measures the chlorophyll fluorescence of the leaf for graphing purposes. His study followed a greenhouse temperature of 10°C compared to the outdoor winter temperatures to see the effects when his chosen three varieties bloomed. The group that experienced a short cold spell outdoors and was then brought inside to the greenhouse, flowered earlier than the group placed in the greenhouse from the beginning, never experiencing the cold. The plants needed that cold to break dormancy. At the end of his talk a book called 'Rhododendrons in Horticulture and Science' was presented to the Victoria Rhododendron Club library in David Ballantyne's honour for being one of the contributors to the fine publication of all the RBGE sessions.