Syringa vulgaris
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Syringa vulgaris' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Common Names
- Common Lilac
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 pekinensis
- Syringa × persica
- Syringa pinnatifolia
- Syringa potaninii
- Syringa × prestoniae
- Syringa pubescens
- Syringa reflexa
- Syringa reticulata
- Syringa sweginzowii
- Syringa tomentella
- Syringa villosa
- Syringa wolfii
- Syringa yunnanensis
- The Garden Lilacs
A deciduous shrub or small tree, up to 20 ft high, usually producing a crowd of erect stems, but occasionally a single trunk over 2 ft in girth, clothed with spirally arranged flakes of bark; shoots and leaves quite glabrous. Leaves heart-shaped or ovate, 2 to 6 in. long, from three-fourths to almost as much wide near the base; stalk 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in. long. Panicles pyramidal, 6 to 8 in. long, usually in pairs from the terminal buds. On cultivated improved varieties, panicles 12 to 18 in. long are produced. Flowers ‘lilac’, delightfully fragrant; corolla-tube 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 in. long, the lobes concave; calyx and flower-stalks more or less furnished with minute gland-tipped down. Seed-vessels smooth, 5⁄8 in. long, beaked. Series Syringa.
Native of the mountainous regions of E. Europe. Introduced to W. Europe in the 16th century. It has been cultivated in England for over three hundred years, and is now as characteristic a feature of village scenery as almost any native shrub.
For a selection of garden varieties of S. vulgaris (and of S. × hyacinthiflora, its hybrid with S. oblata), and a note on their cultivation and pruning, see pp. 544–50.