Viburnum suspensum Lindl.

An evergreen shrub 6 to 12 ft high; branchlets warted and furnished with starry down when quite young only. Leaves leathery, ovate or inclined to oval, pointed, rounded or broadly wedge-shaped at the base, toothed at the terminal two-thirds or scarcely toothed at all; 2 to 5 in. long, 11⁄2 to 3 in. wide; glossy green and quite glabrous; chief veins in four or five pairs; stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Inflorescence a corymbose panicle 21⁄2 to 4 in. long and nearly as wide. Flowers fragrant, white, faintly tinted with rose; corolla-tube cylindrical, spreading at the top into five rounded lobes and measuring 1⁄3 in. in diameter. Calyx five-toothed, the teeth triangular, pointed, ciliate; bracts awl-shaped, 1⁄8 in. long; flower-stalks minutely downy. Fruits globose, red, crowned with the persisting style. Bot. Mag., t. 6172.

Native of the Ryukyus, cultivated in Japan; introduced to Belgium about 1850. This has been tried out-of-doors at Kew with indifferent success even on a wall, but it succeeds very well in the Scilly Isles and Cornwall and it is occasionally sent to Kew to be named from other mild parts of Britain. This shrub does not flower freely in this country, probably for lack of sufficient sunshine, for it flowered well in several gardens in March 1922, owing no doubt to the phenomenal heat and dryness of the previous summer.