And it was all yellow

Forsythia are often sniffed at for being too brassy, but there is a lot more going for them, says Charles Quest-Ritson, although don't plant them next to clashing pink-flowering currants

- Charles Quest-Ritson

THE trouble with forsythias is that we take them for granted. They are ubiquitous at this time of the year, flaunting their cheerful yellow colour in suburban parks and gardens from Penzance to Thurso. From a distance, they all look very similar, apart from the dwarf cultivars that too few of us grow. Large or small, forsythias make invaluable companions for garden daffodils, although, all too often, one sees them nudging up incongruously to pinky-purple flowering currants.

Forsythias are members of the olive family, the Oleaceae, as are ash trees, lilacs, jasmines, privets and olive trees themselves. It is difficult to imagine what all these genera may have in common, although botanists tell us that one distinctive feature is that they have only two stamens. Forsythias have a further peculiarity, which is that they are proponents of heterostyly. This means a whole plant will bear flowers that are either pin-eyed or thrum-eyed, just like primroses. This is an evolutionary insurance against self-pollination and the consequences that follow from in-breeding. It is rare in the plant kingdom as a whole.

Most forsythias, or their ancestors, come from climates with hotter summers than ours. The wood ripens well, which helps them to survive cold winters. You notice this in two ways. First, they flower most abundantly in a Continental climate, where the sheer number of flowers on their bare branches seems extraordinary to English eyes. In northern Italy and parts of Switzerland, forsythias are planted along the central reservation of the motorways. Their brilliance is astonishing, but it also tells you that forsythias can put up with quite a lot of drought.