A deciduous twiggy shrub 3 or 4 ft high; young shoots purplish, downy. Leaves opposite, ovate to oblong, entire, pointed, tapered at the base, 1⁄2 to 1 in. long, 1⁄8 to 1⁄3 in. wide, roughish above, slightly downy beneath; stalk 1⁄10 in. or less long. Flowers produced from July to September in stalkless axillary clusters, a few together. Corolla violet-purple, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long, tubular, with five oblong lobes, downy outside and in the throat.
Native of N. China, where it has been collected by Purdom and others. The plants in cultivation now in England were probably all raised from seed sent home by Farrer (No. 259). He calls it ‘a sturdy little bush with panicles of Persian lilac-like flowers in July.’ According to The Plant Introductions of Reginald Farrer it flowered at Highdown, Sussex, but died in the winter of 1928/9.