A deciduous shrub, sometimes of tree-like form, 6 to 10 ft high, of much-branched, twiggy habit; young shoots furnished with starry down. Leaves ovate, 1⁄2 to 1 in. long, half to two-thirds as wide, rounded or broadly tapered at the base, often bluntish at the apex, the lower half not toothed, the terminal part either three-lobed or sparsely toothed; green and minutely downy on both sides when young. Flowers nodding, pure glistening white, 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. across, produced one to four in the leaf-axils, and at the end of short lateral twigs in June. Corolla lobes ovate-oblong, 1⁄3 in. long, pointed, covered with minute starry down outside; calyx green, scurfy, with lance-shaped lobes 1⁄12 in. long. Stamens clustered in an erect columnar group, 3⁄8 in. high, their stalks white, the anthers yellow. Bot. Mag., t. 8444.
Native of W. China; introduced by Wilson when collecting for the Arnold Arboretum in 1908. It is a very pretty shrub, remarkable in flowering when a few inches high and when only two or three years old. In June, 1913, I saw in Mr Chenault’s nursery at Orleans, a plant 6 ft high in full blossom. It was one of the most beautiful objects I have ever seen.
S. wilsonii is hardy enough, but flowers and fruits so excessively that it is short-lived and has now become rather rare. Dead-heading might have saved the many plants that have been lost.
