Well it had to be Behnkes or American Plant Food (or whatever they are called these days?)
So which is it?
IIRC I've seen this listed as 8-9 only somewhere. You'd think a local nursery of that type (aimin' to be high falutin' LOL) would want to avoid a bunch of returns, so maybe they know something the rest of us don't. I'm only moderately interested: I think Illicium henryi satisfies most of my Asian anise tree needs and it is known to be rock hardy for a BLE. (survived in central PA at Barry Yinger's garden) The wan flower color of this one looks like it would be hard to spot from a distance.

High elevation from China is tricky - depends where in China. Really far to the SW like Yunnan province, you can go pretty high and it's still zone 9 or even 10. Somewhere I've seen pictures of some ridiculously tropical looking palms at over 5000' on the border with Myanmar.

Yeah it was American Plant.

High tropical elevations may mean that they can't take either our cold...or heat!

Do you think I. henryi is hardier than I floridanum?

Actually yes, I have plain I. floridanum, 'Woodland Ruby', and I. henryi. The first two have slight burning, the Illicium henryi was completely undamaged. But it is too small to have bloomed yet.

So far 'Woodland Ruby' is my favorite because it blooms in fall and spring, and may just be longer blooming period. I moved my plain I. floridanum to very bad, low-priority spot - heavy shade of a junk maple tree - because I need the better spots for more exciting plants. It still blooms there though.

Does I. henryi take any sun at all? Or does it burn in sun?

Reminds me of a question someone asked on a Florida-oriented forum: "Anyone know where I can get a Florida anus tree"?

+om

I don't know myself Dave, all of mine are in varying degrees of shade. But I seem to recall the Rarefind catalog saying I. henryi was fairly sun tolerant.