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Syringa potaninii
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Syringa potaninii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Other taxa in genus
- Syringa × chinensis
- Syringa emodi
- Syringa × henryi
- Syringa × hyacinthiflora
- Syringa × josiflexa
- Syringa josikaea
- Syringa komarowii
- Syringa × nanceiana
- Syringa oblata
- Syringa × persica
- Syringa pinetorum
- Syringa pinnatifolia
- Syringa × prestoniae
- Syringa pubescens
- Syringa reticulata
- Syringa tomentella
- Syringa villosa
- Syringa vulgaris
- The Garden Lilacs
A deciduous shrub of graceful habit ultimately 9 to 12 ft high; young shoots minutely downy. Leaves mostly oval, slenderly pointed, tapered at the base, 11⁄2 to 3 in. long, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. wide, dark green and minutely but densely downy above, thickly covered with soft down beneath; stalk 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long. Inflorescence loosely pyramidal, erect, 3 to 6 in. long, 2 to 3 in. wide; main and secondary flower-stalks downy. Flowers fragrant, 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 in. long, white to pale rosy purple, the tube very slender, the four lobes 1⁄8 in. long, narrowly oblong; anthers yellow. Calyx downy, cup-shaped, shallowly toothed or nearly truncate. Seed-vessel 5⁄8 in. long, pointed, glossy, smooth or minutely and sparsely warted. Flowers in June. Series Pubescentes. Bot. Mag., t. 9060.
Native of W. China; discovered in Kansu in 1885 by the Russian traveller Potanin. Wilson found it in 1904 and again in 1908 near Kangting (Tatsien-lu) in W. Szechwan, but apparently it did not reach Britain until Farrer sent seeds from S. Kansu in 1914. A beautiful form from this sending, raised at Highdown, near Worthing, by the late Sir Frederick Stern, is portrayed in the Botanical Magazine. The flowers of the Highdown plant are almost pure white, delightfully fragrant, with yellow anthers. This species is related to S. julianae, but that species has smaller leaves, dark violet anthers and a glabrous calyx. Nearly related to these two species is: