Philadelphus incanus Koehne

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Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Philadelphus incanus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/philadelphus/philadelphus-incanus/). Accessed 2025-07-12.

A shrub up to 8 ft or more high; young shoots more or less hairy. Leaves ovate or oval, broadly wedge-shaped or almost rounded at the base, slender-pointed, finely toothed, 212 to 4 in. long, 114 to 214 in. wide on the barren shoots; those of the flowering twigs mostly 1 to 2 in. long; upper surface set with sparse minute hairs, the lower one thickly covered with appressed pale, stiff hairs giving it a dull grey hue; stalk 112 to 12 in. long, bristly. Flowers white, fragrant, about 1 in. across, produced five to nine (usually seven) together on downy racemes about 2 in. long, at the end of leafy shoots of about the same length. Petals roundish; style about the average length of the stamens, glabrous, divided quite half-way down; disk glabrous. Calyx and flower-stalk shaggy, like the undersurface of the leaves. Fruits top-shaped, 38 in. long.

Native of W. Hupeh and Shensi, China; discovered by Henry about 1887 and introduced by Wilson in 1904. It flowers late – from middle to late July or even into August – and the species is desirable on that account. It is also charmingly fragrant with an odour like that of hawthorn.