A deciduous shrub 4 to 5 ft high; shoots rough when young with starlike scales. Leaves ovate, with long slender points, and a rounded or tapered base, unequally toothed, dull green and rough above, grey beneath, and thickly covered with minute starry scales, 1 to 21⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 11⁄2 in. wide. Flowers in short racemes or corymbs 2 in. wide; petals 3⁄8 to 1⁄2 in. long, downy; wings of stamens toothed; calyx grey with stellate scales, its lobes narrow, pointed.
Native of the Himalaya; tender in this country. At Kew it is cut down to the ground almost every year, and its flowers consequently are not often seen.
var. brunoniana Hook. f. & Thoms. D. brunoniana Wall., nom. nud.; D. corymbosa Lindl., not R. Br.; D. canescens Hort. – This is the form usually seen in cultivation. It has more broadly ovate, longer-pointed leaves and larger flowers than are typical.