The Forest Pansy tree

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', autumn colour, Jonathan Billinger, Geograph.co.uk

On the edge of his lawn in Virginia where the incline of one slope met the rise of another, my father planted a small grove of redbuds. Each spring the bare supple branches waved high with festive delicate pink bloom. My father was not alone in ornamenting his acres with these trees (Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis) as he was planting what founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson in particular, also chose – a native tree for a new country. Jefferson’s designs for the White House he inhabited as third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809 included groves of redbuds. His designs for the official residence were never fulfilled, but when later he built Monticello, his grand country residence near Charlottesville, he had such massed clusters flanking his home blending with other native species such as honey locust and magnolia.

Years later, I too, now long resident in England, the old democracy from which dreams of a new world had sprung, have taken to redbuds to decorate my lawn. We have two redbud cultivars, small trees found here more as eye-catching exotics known not for their spring bloom – although the flowers are there, so tiny and fragile you have to look up close – but rather for the surprising perfectly heart-shaped leaves.  Cercis canadensis ‘Ruby Falls’ is a small tree with long weeping branches dense with leaves which are a glossy purple as they unfold and in autumn darken to a more muted shade. Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ stretches out its arms, and its leaves are vibrant differing shades of crimson, rust and gold especially in autumn. These are not my father’s redbuds but offspring of that parent strain.

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', David J. Stang

These Cercis are among those trees sought out around the world by plant collectors to enliven and add colour in parks and gardens to the native stock of British trees, those sturdy and interesting specimens that form the well-known landscapes and have been evoked in literature as well as serving various economic uses for wood. There is one more common kind of Cercis, C. siliquastrum, the Judas tree, which comes from the eastern Mediterranean area that has long been grown in Britain and is a fairly common sight in grand gardens and parks. The Cercis canadensis is a more recent introduction. It was collected from the east coast of America, the site where explorers first landed in the seventeenth century in the early days of trading plants. It may not be possible to assign a specific date to its arrival but maybe it was one of those, like liquidambar, the sweet gum, or Magnolia grandiflora that came by way of those seeking to develop collections to show or tempt buyers of exotics as did the Tradescants, father and son. Maybe Cercis was included in one of the exchanges between gardeners in the eighteen century such as is documented in the fascinating study by Andrea Wulf, The Brother Gardeners, 2009.

Cercis belong to the family Leguminosae, the pea family. It is perhaps the lobed pea or pansy-like shape of the fine blooms that inspired the common name of Forest Pansy. Like the Judas tree, a name perhaps alluding to the hills of Judea where it grew or from its being the tree from which Judas hanged himself, common names evoke images and trip off the tongue however derived. For me, the Forest Pansy evokes joyful moments in my personal history as well as giving me as it thrives on my lawn a burst of pleasure as I inspect its amazing leaves.

See Andrea Wulf, The Brother Gardeners, 2009 and The Founding Gardeners, 2011 for discussion of the American connections. There is an American description of Cercis canadensis in Daniel Jay Browne, The Trees of America, 1846.