General description of karmona, farming techniques for home care, rules for breeding erections, possible pests and diseases, interesting facts, species. Carmona belongs to the genus of tree-like or shrub plants, also found under the name Ehretia, Eretia or Ehretia. It is included in the Ehretiaceae family according to some data or according to others in the Boraginaceae family. The native area of growth falls on the lands of Southeast Asia, namely, Chinese and Japanese lands.
The plant bears its name in honor of the botanist from Germany Georg Dionysius Eret (1708-1770). There are other names for karmona - tea tree or Funee tea.
Carmona in the form of a tree in natural conditions can reach height values of 15–25 m. When the plant is mature, its trunk has a fissured, rough gray bark. The branches are hard, their color is brown, but the young branches are light brown. The leaf plates are simple, grow on the branches in the next order, their surface is rough to the touch, the color is rich green. Their size is small, only 1–2 cm. The upper side of the leaf is sometimes covered with whitish hairs. Serration may be present along the edge.
The flowering process is often year-round, but often the plant can form flowers twice a year: in June-July and in December-February. From the flowers, curl inflorescences are usually collected. However, the buds can be placed singly. There are varieties that have a short peduncle, but mostly the flowers are sessile. The shape of the corolla is bell-tubular. The size of the flowers is very small. The color of the petals is white, yellowish, cream, or sometimes there is a slight pinkish tint. Elongated filaments stick out from the corolla. The flowers have a strong fragrant aroma.
The fruit is a drupe, which reaches 1, 5–3 cm in diameter. The surface is smooth, its color is yellow, orange-yellow or reddish. Eretia, strewn with bright fruits, looks quite impressive. One plant can contain both flowers and fruits at the same time. The fruits are not suitable for food.
Often it is this plant that is used as a bonsai cultivation. Moreover, its height will vary within 5-50 cm.
Recommendations for caring for carmona at home
- Lighting for eretia it is necessary to be bright, but diffused, without direct streams of sunlight.
- Air temperature when keeping karmona in the spring-summer period, it should fluctuate at 20 degrees, and with the arrival of autumn and throughout the winter, it should be gradually reduced to 10-15 degrees.
- Watering and humidity for an erection should be moderate. Depending on the temperature of the content, soil moistening is carried out every 3-5 days. The substrate in the pot should not dry out, but the carmona will not tolerate the bay either. It can painlessly withstand only a short-term drought, but then every day you will have to spray the foliage. Spraying is also important in winter, if the heat indicators do not decrease, and heating devices are working in the rooms. After pruning, watering is carried out after a while. In this case, you should use only soft water with a temperature of 20-24 degrees.
- Fertilizers for karmona, they are introduced from the beginning of spring to June, with regularity once a month. Liquid organic plant food for bonsai-style plants is used. However, in the literature it is mentioned that in the spring-summer period, eretia is fertilized once every 2 weeks, and in winter only once a month. After the transplant, feeding is not carried out for another 2 weeks. Fertilizers should not contain much nitrogen, as this will reduce flowering and the carmona will build up green foliage.
- Transplantation. With the arrival of April, the erection should change the pot and the soil in it, however, this process is performed only once every 2 years. The roots should be shortened little by little and gradually, since the plant reacts very painfully to this operation. A drainage layer should be laid in the new container.
Carmona can grow well in a completely inorganic material, however, it is preferable to mainly make up the substrate from the following options:
- garden soil, river sand or fine gravel, clay granulate (in a ratio of 1: 2: 1);
- if there is no granulate, then an earth mixture is made based on soil and coarse sand (3-4 mm) in a 1: 1 ratio;
- heather soil, turf soil, leafy soil and river sand (all parts are equal).
How to multiply an erection without assistance?
When multiplying karmona, almost all methods are used: sowing seed material, cuttings using green or semi-lignified branches, planting them in the ground, layering.
Cutting is the most successful method. However, with this plant, this is a rather complicated process, since the rooting of cuttings should take place in a warm room, without access to air and using phytohormones. In spring, cuttings should be cut from the apical branches; they should be annual with a length of about 10 cm and a diameter of about 10 mm. You can use those parts of the branches that remained after pruning.
The cuttings are treated with a root growth stimulant. Then they are planted in a mini-greenhouse in a peat-sandy substrate. The germination temperature is maintained at 18 degrees. Humidity should be high, but excessive watering should not be allowed. If the plants are rooted, then in the future such eretia will completely repeat all the characteristics of the parent specimen. With seed propagation, properties can be lost.
As soon as the young karmons grow up, they are transferred into a pot with soil for constant growth and the young shoots are pinched. This operation will contribute to the thickening of the stem and slow down the growth of erethia in height.
Difficulties in cultivating karmona and ways to overcome them
Erecia is not a plant that causes many problems when growing it, and if you follow all the rules, it will delight the eye for a long time with flowering and no less spectacular fruiting. However, if the humidity in the air decreases, especially on hot summer days, then the carmona may be affected by spider mites, aphids, scale insects or mealybugs. If pests are found, treatment with insecticidal preparations should be carried out.
In the case of frequent flooding of the substrate, especially at a low temperature of its content, it can be overtaken by a nuisance in the form of powdery mildew, sometimes even black spot or other fungal diseases. In this case, the erection should be transplanted into a new pot with a new disinfected substrate, but pre-treat the plant with fungicides.
However, it should be noted that echretia is very sensitive to any kind of chemical preparations, therefore, it is recommended to carry out a test on separate leaves before processing. Then a week should pass under your supervision, if the leaf plates did not turn yellow, black and did not fly around, then you can spray the entire plant.
Due to the lack of iron, the leaves of the carmona acquire a lighter shade of green color, but dark green streaks clearly appear on them - this is a sign of chlorosis, fertilization with iron-containing preparations will be required.
If the leaf plates turned yellow and flew around, then this was the reason for a significant decrease in temperature or the plant lacks nutrition. When young shoots began to stretch and thin out, this happens due to insufficient lighting.
Interesting facts about erection
Because of its obedient contouring properties, karmona is often used to create bonsai. If the branches have not yet surpassed the 3-year mark, then they very easily change direction and take the forms that are given to them with the help of the wire. But the plant is also great for all styles. When growing erethia in the bonsai style, it must be remembered that the plant does not tolerate root pruning well. And when transplanting, such a shortening of the roots is carried out in several stages, that is, the roots are cut off only with each next change of soil, a little so that the carmona does not suffer much from such stress.
Most often, the plant is used when grown outdoors as an ornamental crop, with its help hedges are formed, which will be decorated with small star-like flowers, which will be replaced by fruitlets of bright orange or reddish color. However, these berries cannot be used for food.
The popular name of Carmona microphilla, or as it is also called Ehretia buxifolia, is Fukien Tea Tree (a tea tree from Fujian) or Phillippine tea, which indicates the origin of this representative of the Borage family.
Types of karmona (erection)
Pointed erection (Ehretia acuminata) is common in the lands of China, Asia and the Himalayas. It has a tree-like form of growth and can reach a height of 10 m. The sizes of the leaf plates are large, and the flowers are quite small, the ripening fruits are even smaller than the buds, have a dark and juicy pericarp. On the lands of the former USSR, a variable variety var. obovata (Lindl.) Iohnst. There you can find it on the southern coast of Crimea as an ornamental plant, as it has highly decorative properties during both flowering and fruiting. Shows drought-resistant qualities and can seriously suffer from frost only in very severe winters. Never used when grown in northern regions.
Large-leaved carmona (Carmona microphylla) can also be found under the name Wax malpighia. This plant has a shrubby form of growth, and its branches are covered with leaves with a shiny surface. The number of leaves is very large, the color is dark green, it grows well in highly shaded places, where the sun's rays fall for only 2-3 hours a day. The flowering process is observed two or three times a year, and small whitish flowers are formed. After pollination in place of them, tiny berries of a reddish-orange color ripen. It is they who give the tree a rather elegant look. In the rainy season, the plant is easy to graft. Reproduction is also carried out by sowing seed. This type of erection is good when grown in any stele.
Small-leaved carmona (Carmona microphilla). However, the correct botanical name for the plant is Ehretia buxifolia. It is an evergreen shrub or small tree that prefers to grow in warm climates. Their trunks are covered with a rough bark to the touch. These representatives of the flora have small leaf plates with a shiny surface and an oval shape, which are covered with pubescence of short blond hairs. The leaf plates are located on the branches in the next order.
If the carmona grows in conditions of sufficient heat, light and humidity, then in the process of flowering, small flowers with white petals are formed. When fertilized, fruits are tied, the color of which can be either red or yellowish. This variety can be successfully propagated by cuttings or propagated by cuttings or by sowing seed. It is this type of karmona that is used for forming in the bonsai style, when molding one- or two-year-old branches with a wire. However, compared to the large-leaved erection, its growth rate is slower and it will take more time to grow this tree.
Eretia dicksonii or may be called Eretia dicksonii. This variety was first introduced in the robots of the British botanist and diplomat Henry Fletcher Hans in 1862, and since then this name has been recognized as official. It is a tree-like representative of the flora that grows in Asia: in open forests in the lands of Japan, China and Thailand, and it can also be found in Bhutan, Nepal and Vietnam. It is customary to cultivate this type of karmona as an ornamental plant. Its height can reach 15 m. The branches and trunk are covered with gray-brown bark, cut by cracks. The branches also have a brown tone, but younger ones with a light brown tint, there is pubescence.
Leaf plates can grow up to 8–25 cm in length and 4–15 cm in width. The shape of the leaves is obovate, ovoid or elliptical, they are leathery and rough to the touch. At the base, they have a wedge-shaped or rounded shape, and the top has a sharp point, the edge is decorated with notches. The petiole grows to a length of 1-4 cm, also pubescent.
The forming flowers are distinguished by petals of white or pale yellow color, after which fruitlets with a yellow color ripen in diameter, reaching from 1 to 1.5 cm. They are collected in corymbose or paniculate inflorescences, which measure 6-9 cm in width. The length of linear bracts reaches 5 mm. Flowers can grow sessile or practically so. The calyx is 3, 5–4, 5 mm in size, it is cut almost to the base. The lobes of the lobes are oblong or ovate, with pubescence. The corolla is tubular-bell-shaped, has a fragrant aroma. In length, it can reach 8-10 mm with a width of 2 mm at the base. Staminate filaments peep out of the corolla, which measure 3-4.5 mm in length. The size of the anthers is 1.5–2 mm. The flowering process occurs in June-July.
Eretia tinifolia (Ehretia tinifolia). Native growing areas are tropical deciduous forests, and this species can also be found along the roadsides, often cultivated at an altitude of 0-900 meters above sea level. Mainly in the lands of Mexico Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi, as well as in Nayarit, Michiacan, Guerrero, Cuba, Spanish Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. These tree-like evergreens can reach a height of 15–25 m. The branches are mostly bare. Leaf plates are measured in length 6, 5–12 cm with a width of about 3–6 cm. The shape of the leaves is elliptical, the surface is bare, at the base the outline is from obtuse to sharp, the edge is solid, the apex is obtuse, rounded. The petioles are 5–10 mm long and glabrous.
The flowers are bisexual, have a very short peduncle, or grow sessile. The calyx is 1.5–2 mm long, bell-shaped outlines, their surface is bare, cilia run along the inner edge. Sepals are ovoid, up to 1.5–2 mm long, there are five of them in the calyx. Corolla length is measured in the range of 4-4.6 mm, its color is white, tubular-bell-shaped, with bent petals. The petals can vary in length in the range of 2.5–5 mm in length with a width of up to 1, 3–1, 7 mm, there are also five of them, their shape is from broad-oblong-ovoid to oblong. In the corolla, filamentous stamens with a length of about 3-4.5 mm grow.
After pollination, a fruit is tied, inside which there is a stone, with dimensions of 5-7x4-6 mm. The shape of the fruit is wide-elliptical, its surface is smooth, the color is yellow-orange.
