A deciduous, sub-shrubby, or sometimes scandent plant, with stems up to 6 ft long, dying back nearly to the base in winter; stout, ribbed, covered with grey down. Leaves composed of three leaflets, broadly ovate, the terminal one three-lobed, all coarsely and sharply toothed, from 2 to 6 in. long, nearly as wide, downy on the stalks and on the strongly marked veins. Flowers produced on branched stalks 4 to 10 in. or more long, the flowers being clustered in the axils of leaf-like bracts. They are 3⁄4 in. long and wide, tubular at the base, the sepals curled at the ends, nearly white. Bot. Mag., t. 6810.
Native of Japan; introduced by Von Siebold to France about 1860. It belongs to the same group as C. heracleifolia, a group distinguished by tube-shaped, hyacinth-like flowers. In C. stans the plants may be male or female, or they may have flowers of both sexes on the one plant. The last (monoecious) form was once known as C. kousabotan Decne. C. stans is distinguished from C. heracleifolia by its laxer habit, more downy stems, and smaller flowers.
cv. ‘Lavallei’. – A very strong-growing form with sweet-scented flowers of both sexes on the same plant (monoecious); flower-stalks up to 18 in. long; flowers 3⁄4 in. long.