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Stephanandra incisa (Thunb.) Zab.

Modern name

Stephanandra incisa (Thunb.) Zabel

Synonyms

Spiraea incisa Thunb.; Stephanandra flexuosa Sieb. & Zucc.

A deciduous shrub of graceful habit, with glabrous, wiry, zigzag branches, forming a dense, rounded bush ultimately 3 to 5 ft high (rarely taller), sending up sucker growths freely from the base; sometimes a spreading, mounded bush only 2 ft or so high. Leaves triangular in the main, truncate or heart-shaped at the base, tapering to a slender apex, 112 to 3 in. long, somewhat less in width at the base, the margins cut into deep lobes, the lobes toothed; stipules linear, toothed, 14 in. long. Flowers greenish white, 15 in. wide, crowded on panicles 1 to 3 in. long and terminating short side-twigs from the previous year’s shoots; stamens ten.

Native of Japan and Korea; introduced to Kew, in 1872, by way of St Petersburg. It has proved quite hardy, and is now generally cultivated for the beauty of its handsomely cut, fern-like foliage, and for the brown of its naked stems and branches in winter. The finest specimen I have seen is in Lord Annesley’s garden at Castlewellan, which some years ago was 8 ft high and more in diameter – an exceedingly elegant bush. The flowers appear in June, but have little beauty.

cv. ‘Crispa’. – Of procumbent habit, rooting at the nodes and spreading widely, eventually about 2 ft high. Leaves rather more deeply incised than normal, crisped when young. Raised in Denmark and introduced to this country in the late 1950s. A useful ground-cover, but not suitable for very dry soils. The leaves turn orange in the autumn. Forms of S. incisa no taller than this have long been cultivated.


Stephanandra incisa

Stephanandra incisa


From the Supplement (Vol. V)

This species was reintroduced to Kew in 1982 from the Mount Odae National Park, Kangwong province, South Korea, where it grows to about 6 ft high (B.E. & C. 169).

Genus

Stephanandra

Other species in the genus