Vitex rotundifolia Very Rare Most gardeners who grow camellias

Most gardeners who grow camellias know two of them

Even in winter the peeling bark gives a quiet kind of beauty

red-flushed glow uncommon in the species

In the late 1870s the English plant hunter Charles Maries

Larger-flowered and more tender than the common poet's jasmine

Vitex rotundifolia Very Rare Most gardeners who grow camelliasA tough, salt defying seaside groundcover with a serious caveat. Vitex rotundifolia, best known as beach vitex, is a low, prostrate, trailing shrub of the mint family, native to the coasts of eastern Asia, the Pacific islands, and Australia, where the plant binds shifting sand along the shore. Rounded, blue green leaves about two inches across clothe the running stems, aromatic and slightly spicy when crushed, and spikes of bright lavender blue