PART ONE : VICTORIAN LADY AND HER RETINUE OF LOOKALIKES
Ask any abutilon afficionado if there is a double flowered version of their favourite shrub, and they will quickly tell you that there certainly is, and it’s called ‘Victorian Lady’. And there she is in the photo below.
ABUTILON VICTORIAN LADY AT PADDOCK PLANTS
But when and where did Victorian Lady originate, and is she the only double abutilon, as is usually claimed? Firstly, it is worth noting that the RHS lists the cultivar name Victorian Lady as ‘unresolved’, which is essentially a figurative shrug of the shoulders as to its origins and reliability. Not much help there then. Terrapin Gardens, a US nursery near Seattle, ventures the suggestion that Victorian Lady is ‘probably a reintroduction of a lost cultivar called ‘Lady’ from the 1800's’. Despite our best efforts, we can’t track down a reference to this supposed ancestor, so that suggestion unfortunately seems something of a cul de sac.
Exactly when Victorian Lady appeared on the scene is also a bit of a mystery. The earliest mention we can find is a record from April 2004 of the acquisition of an abutilon of that name by the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Massachusetts, as supplied by the big commercial nursery Avant Gardens (it’s still listed in their catalogue). Which points to Victorian Lady being a relative newcomer, a theory that was also supported by the now defunct US nursery Annie’s Annuals, which used to describe it as a new variety. But now it gets a bit more complicated …..
ABUTILON DOUBLE PINK FROM THE EMERISA GARDENS WEBSITE (US)
Nurseries in the US (Emerisa Gardens) and Australia (Spring Park Nursery) list a cultivar under the name ‘Double Pink’ which looks, to all intents and purposes, just like Victorian Lady. Another Australian outfit, White House Nursery, seemingly goes the whole hog with ‘Victorian Lady - Double Pink’, though the latter part might just be intended as descriptive. Laurence Hatch, in his authoritative Abutilon Checklist Project (2013) mentions not only Victorian Lady, but also ‘Double Pink’, of which he says ‘This is not a good name as it’s based on simple, easily reused terms. Needs a good name.’ Now, we know that around 2009 the well-known Monterey Bay Nursery in Oregon was listing their Victorian Lady lookalike under the name ‘Double Pink’, which seems to be Laurence Hatch’s source. In an email correspondence with us, Montery Bay owner Luen Miller confirmed that ‘we've only grown that one double pink. Our previous grower Jeff Brooks found that somewhere in his travels, at a retail outlet or possibly an arboretum plant sale. Probably the source had it labeled as such. At some point he learned its correct name was Victorian Lady.’ Since when Monterey Bay have used the latter name. Which might suggest that Double Pink and Victorian Lady are in fact one and the same thing?
But wait. Our next stop takes us back down under, where we find another two named double pink cultivars. One is ‘Pink Swirls’, listed by Larkman Nurseries: owner Clive Larkman tells us that they obtained the original plant from an unidentified Australian source, certainly pre-2007, under the name Double Pink, but rebranded it with their own name Pink Swirls. The other is ‘Tutu’, offered by Faceys Nursery: our contact there reports that they originally bought Abutilon Tutu from Avondale Tubestock Nursery, which is now closed. Which unfortunately leaves its origins unresolved, though our contact did say that they felt Tutu and Victorian Lady were identical in appearance.
ABUTILON TUTU FROM FACEYS NURSERY (AUSTRALIA)
So where does that leave us? We appear to have at least four named double cultivars: Double Pink, Victorian Lady, Pink Swirls and Tutu. We already know (see above) that Pink Swirls is Double Pink under another name, so could the same be true of Victorian Lady and Tutu, given that they all look pretty much the same? Agreed, images show some variation in the fullness and frilliness of the flowers, but probably no more than can be put down to natural variation. It’s tempting therefore to think that at some time in the late 90s or early 00s a double pink abutilon entered circulation under the, perhaps temporary, name ‘Double Pink’ and that it has since assumed more imaginative monikers, Victorian Lady proving to be the most popular and widely accepted version.
Who first gave her this label we don’t know. Victorian Lady might be a reference to the form of the flowers resembling the frilly bustle dresses worn by ladies in Victorian times. Or it might point to Australian origins: somewhat ironically, the two nurseries offering a double pink form not called Victorian Lady are both in the state of - yes, you’ve guessed it - Victoria.
And that’s it for Part 1. In Part 2 we will be going back in time in search of other double abutilons of the past.
RTC December 2024