A deciduous shrub whose young shoots are at first clothed with close stellate down, becoming glabrous and brown the second year. Leaves lanceolate to oval-lanceolate, mostly rounded at the base, the apex long and tapered, minutely toothed, up to 21⁄2 in. long by 1 in. wide on the sterile shoots, much smaller on the short flowering ones; the upper surface dull dark green, furnished with appressed, stellate, mostly four- or five-rayed hairs; grey-green beneath, with more minute and more numerous stellate hairs (only visible with a lens); veins in five to seven pairs; leaf-stalks 1⁄8 to 1⁄6 in. long. Flowers borne numerously during July at the end of leafy twigs about 3 in. long, in compact corymbose panicles 2 in. across. Flowers white, 1⁄3 in. wide, closely packed; petals roundish, imbricate in the bud; calyx bell-shaped at the base, the lobes broadly ovate; flower-stalks stellately hairy. Bot. Mag., t. 8795.
Native of China; introduced by Maurice de Vilmorin, and distributed by him under the number 4277. It flowered for the first time at Kew and Glasnevin in July 1913. It is distinct in its small, densely clustered blossoms.