Silver hazel is listed as a first-class protection level in the "List of Wild Plants under National Key Protection" issued twice in China in 1999 and 2021, but its name has also undergone many changes.
First, the discovery and study of silver hazel
In September 1935, Professor Shen Jun, a botanist at nanjing Zhongshan Botanical Garden, collected a plant specimen in the limestone mountain of Furong Temple in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, with branches and leaves and fruits, looking like witch hazel but obviously different from witch hazel.
Until 1954, when the former Professor Of Flora of Zhongshan Botany was sorting out the specimen, he believed that this tree species was one of the hamamelis taxa, similar to the Japanese witch hazel, but could not be sure, pointing out that the specimen was of great importance. In 1959, Professor Shan Renhua arranged for Deng Maobin to go to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui to continue to search for silver hazel.
Second, the first naming
In 1960, Mr. Zhang Hongda, a plant taxonomist in China, officially named this specimen that had no flowers and a fruit on the branch, and the classification status was Hamamelidae, which was officially named Hamamelis subaequalis h.t.chang, published in the Journal of Sun Yat-sen University (No. 1, 1960); Mr. Zhang Hongda believed that the leaves of the small-leaf witch hazel were inverted ovate, the lateral veins were 4-5 pairs, the first pair of lateral veins was no longer branched, and the base was round. The capsule is less than 1 cm long and distinguishable from witch hazel; in 1979, it was published in the Flora of China, Volume 35, Book 2, and for some time after that, silver hazel basically adopted this scientific name.
Third, continue to study and name
In 1987, when the state organized the compilation of the "Red Book" of rare and endangered plants, Deng Maobin was selected as an editorial board member and undertook the task of compiling 40 species, including silver hazel, and in June 1987, Mr. Deng found 7 silver hazel trees with "only fruit and no flowers" in the limestone mountain of Xingshan Roll Cave in Yixing, Jiangsu Province. In March 1991, After waiting for 5 years, Mr. Deng finally saw the flowering silver hazel plant in Yixing, looked at the red flowers in the distance, and after careful observation, found that there were no petals on each small flower, which was the "living fossil" silver witch hazel.
In 1992, Deng Maobin, Wei Hongtu and Wang Xiruo published a paper entitled "A New Genus of Witch Hazel Chinese Witch Hazel Family" in the Journal of Plant Taxonomy, and set the scientific name of silver hazel as shaniodendron sudaequale (h.t.chang) m.b.deng, ht.wei et x.q.wang, which is the second official name of silver hazel. This scientific name was used in the 1999 National List of Wild Plants under Key Protection (the first batch).
In 1998, Hao Riming and Wei Hongtu once again conducted comparative research on silver hazel specimens collected from Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places, from the basic morphological characteristics to the ribosome test results, it was believed that the previously identified silver witch hazel had the closest relationship with parrotia and was most similar to the Iranian witch hazel native to the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, and finally revised the official name of the silver hazel, the scientific name is parrotia subaequalis (ht.chang) r.m.hao etht.wei, published in the Journal of Plant Taxonomy, the paper is titled "A New Combination of Witch Hazel Family". This scientific name is used in the 2021 National List of Wild Plants under Key Protection.
To sum up, the scientific name of silver hazel usually appears in three situations: the first is the scientific name name named by Mr. Zhang Hongda; the second is the scientific name named by Deng Maobin, Wei Hongtu and Wang Xiruo; the third is the scientific name name named by Hao Riming and Wei Hongtu, which is also the latest scientific name of silver witch hazel. Here is the main popular science silver hazel name use problem.