What is this plant?

[hellymelly]

I saw a tree/shrub that I really loved but I have no idea what it was,it had strange hanging orange ball flowers,they were like flowery cherries in that they hung in twos i think...Each ball was studded with little flowers-any ideas ?

bump!

It was in North London,could go and look up the name of the place on an A-Z if that might help!

It could be Physalis (Chinese Lantern)

no,not that,I love that actually but this is a tree and the flowers are strange orange balls that hang down like fruit.

Could it have been a strawberry tree?. The fruit are very distinctive.

A type of berberis?

You'll have to go back and take a picture

It's not orange buddleia is it? My mum has one of these and it sounds a bit like what you're describing. I think it gets taller than ordinary buddleias.

Strawberry tree! I think that is it ASmallBunchOfFlowers,but I love that orange Buddleia and so I've just ordered them both,thankyou-I've been trying to find out for years,no-one seemed to know.

You're welcome, although I'm not convinced that what you saw was an arbutus as the http://inlinethumb34.webshots.com/2657/1214709579031829791S425x425Q85.jpg flowers don't hang in pompoms as you described. But it's still a lovely plant!

Ah, strawberry tree is exactly what I thought too, they are lovely.

Gah! I was trying to show you the flowers.

You've just reminded me I planted a strawberry tree here and it is nowhere to be seen!

Deer or frost must have finished it off.

You have deer? And here I am fretting about cats and foxes.

Well it was several years ago that I saw it-so I did hesitate over the orange ball buddleia,but I think it probably was the strawberry tree.I've been peering at the A-z trying to remember the square I saw it in ,I used to cycle past it on my way to work.Is there anything else with orange ball type flowers?Maybe I assumed the balls were flowers even though they were actually fruit?

Hmm,also now I've seen the second link with the pics of fruit and flowers together I'm not so sure..

Yep ASmallBunchOfFlowers deer, they are so annoying, I put in a cherry tree, the day after the first flowers appeared one spring the deer ate it in half. It's taken three years for the poor tree to recover.

Plus we have been hounded by a stag here when we go for a walk each rutting season. He took particular offence at me being pregnant.

And I was a vegetarian for 20 yrs!

When (which month) did it flower, do you remember?

I'm not sure when it was in flower (or fruit)as it was so long ago but I think it was late Summer(ish)

Arbutus does flower/fruit in late summer/autumn but so does the buddleia...