A deciduous shrub usually 3 to 8 ft high, the young shoots slightly downy or glabrous. Leaves narrowly oval or lanceolate, tapering at both ends, thin but firm, toothed, 11⁄2 to 4 in. long, 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. wide, downy on the veins and midrib beneath; stalk very short. Flowers produced during May and June in decurved racemes, 2 to 3 in. long, terminating short twigs of the previous year. Corolla white, cylindrical, 1⁄4 in. long; sepals ovate, pointed; flower-stalk very short and stout; anthers terminated by two awns, one to each cell.
Native of the southern Allegheny Mountains from Virginia to Alabama; introduced to England by Prof. Sargent about 1890, but very rare. It is probably not so hardy, nor so good a garden plant, as its near ally, L. racemosa, from which it differs chiefly in its more diffuse habit, the recurved racemes, and very distinctly grooved seed-vessel; each pollen bag, too, is surmounted by only one bristle instead of two.