Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
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'Philadelphus pekinensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
A shrub up to 8 ft high; young shoots glabrous, the bark peeling off the year-old branches. Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate, slender-pointed, toothed, 11⁄2 to 31⁄2 in. long, 3⁄4 to 2 in. wide; three-nerved, glabrous or nearly so; stalk and veins beneath purplish. Flowers yellowish, about 1 in. across, slightly fragrant, produced in racemes of five to nine (sometimes eleven). Petals oval, rounded at the top; calyx glabrous outside, downy towards the points of the lobes inside; styles separated at the top only; flower-stalk glabrous.
Native of N. China and Korea. It flowers in late May and June and is distinct in its yellowish flowers, glabrous leaves with purplish stalks, and glabrous flower-stalks; but it is not one of the best, although free-flowering.
Synonyms
P. pekinensis var. brachybotrys (Koehne) Koehne