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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
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'Distylium' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
A genus of about eight species of evergreen trees and shrubs in China, Japan and the Indo-Malaysian region. The species described below is one of three evergreen members of the witch-hazel family cultivated in the British Isles and the most common, though all are rare. The following combinations of characters distinguish them: flowers apetalous, in slender racemes – D. racemosum; flowers apetalous, in clusters – Sycopsis sinensis flowers with white petals – Loropetalum chinense.
D. racemosum also occurs in south-eastern and central China, and it is probable that the plant at Kew by the Victoria Gate is of this provenance. It flowers much earlier than April-May, the usual time for plants from Japan.