A deciduous shrub of lax or semi-scandent habit growing 8 to 10 ft high. Leaves cleft to about one-third their depth, each half kidney-shaped, 1 to 21⁄2 in. wide, 5⁄8 to 11⁄2 in. long, glabrous above, downy beneath; leaf-stalk 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long. Flowers white, 1⁄2 in. wide, borne about six together on a short downy raceme; petals narrowly obovate.
Native of W. China; introduced by Forrest. Wilson saw it in flower at 3,000 to 4,000 ft altitude in Szechwan in June 1908, which is also its flowering time at Kew. It is neither a showy plant nor a very hardy one, but its foliage is unlike that of any other hardy tree or shrub. E. J. P. Magor flowered it at Lamellen, Cornwall, and it was grown for some years at Kew on a wall of the Temperate House, but is no longer in the collection. It likes a loamy soil and a sunny position.