I bought a miniature potted tree from a Chinese grocer that told me it was a 'Happy Tree!'. He had no idea what it was, just that it's happy. Well that was enough to get me to buy it but now I want to know what it is. Here's the description - It's about 8 inches tall, long narrow green stem (or trunk?) with tiny white specks, it's growing straight upwards from in between an egg sized, smooth, green nut split into two halves, a cluster of green leaves at the top that are quite big for the size of the tree (somewhat like the leaves if a ficus), a smaller cluster of very small leaves at the very top.
My digital camera is broken so I hope the description is adequate, if you need, I could email you a reasonable facsimile. Drop me a line at whitbyboy at yahoo.
Happy tree. hello,
Camptotheca (happy tree) is a genus of medium-sized deciduous trees growing to 20 m tall, native to central China. They are usually included in the tupelo family Nyssaceae, but sometimes included (with the tupelos) in the dogwood family Cornaceae.
There are two species:
Camptotheca acuminata Decne.
Camptotheca lowreyana S.Y.Li
The name 'happy tree' is a direct translation of the Chinese name xi shu. An extract from the tree (camptothecin) is used as an anti-cancer treatment in China |
