Syringa pekinensis
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Syringa pekinensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Synonyms
- Ligustrina pekinensis (Rupr.) Dieck
Infraspecifics
Other taxa in genus
- Syringa × chinensis
- Syringa emodi
- Syringa × hyacinthiflora
- Syringa josikaea
- Syringa julianae
- Syringa komarowii
- Syringa laciniata
- Syringa meyeri
- Syringa microphylla
- Syringa oblata
- Syringa patula
- Syringa × persica
- Syringa pinnatifolia
- Syringa potaninii
- Syringa × prestoniae
- Syringa pubescens
- Syringa reflexa
- Syringa reticulata
- Syringa sweginzowii
- Syringa tomentella
- Syringa villosa
- Syringa vulgaris
- Syringa wolfii
- Syringa yunnanensis
- The Garden Lilacs
A deciduous small tree of spreading, graceful habit, up to 20 ft high eventually; young shoots glabrous. Leaves ovate, oval, or ovate-lanceolate, 2 to 4 in. long, 1 to 2 in. wide, mostly tapering, sometimes rounded at the base, long and tapering at the apex, quite glabrous on both surfaces; stalk slender, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long. Flowers cream-coloured, very densely clustered in numerous loose panicles 3 to 6 in. long, produced in pairs. Seed-vessel 5⁄8 to 3⁄4 in. long, glabrous, pointed at the end.
Native of the mountains of N. China, where it was discovered by the Abbé David. It was raised at Kew in 1881 from seed sent from Peking by Dr Bretschneider. Botanically allied to S. reticulata, it is very distinct as seen growing. It has much more slender branches, the leaves are smaller, the inflorescence instead of being sturdy, pyramidal, and erect, is smaller and is a loose, rather shapeless panicle; the seed vessel, too, differs in the more pointed apex. It is perfectly hardy, and has grown more quickly at Kew than S. reticulata. It flowers freely towards the end of June.