A strong-growing shrub, 10 or 12 ft high eventually, producing gracefully arching shoots, 2 to 3 ft long in a season; young branches reddish, slightly downy. Leaves 3⁄4 to 2 in. long, 1⁄3 to 3⁄4 in. wide, oblong or obovate, not toothed, glabrous on both surfaces or very slightly downy beneath. Flowers white, small, crowded in dense corymbs, 11⁄2 to 21⁄2 in. across. Calyx and flower-stalks covered with a fine down. Fruits glabrous when ripe. Bot. Mag., t. 8383.
Native of western and central China; discovered by Wilson in W. Hupeh in 1900, and introduced by him for Messrs Veitch. It is a fine species (Mr Wilson told me he considered it the best of Chinese spiraeas), somewhat similar in general aspect and in producing its flowers on short leafy twigs from the growths of the previous summer, to the well-known S. canescens. It is readily distinguished from that species, however, by its glabrous, entire leaves and glabrous fruit. Its entire leaves also distinguish it from two other allies – S. henryi and S. wilsonii. I saw the plants first introduced in their young state in the Coombe Wood nursery, when they were making shoots as much as 8 ft long in a season; when these, the following June, were wreathed from end to end with clusters of pure white blossom, they made a picture of remarkable beauty.