A deciduous shrub of bushy habit 3 to 8 ft high; branchlets bifurcated or in whorls, glabrous. Leaves produced in a rosette at the end of the twig, oval to obovate, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. long, about half as wide, tapering to a very short stalk; abruptly pointed, finely toothed; dark dull green above, with white hairs on the midrib, paler beneath, and with darker, longer hairs along the midrib. Flowers produced in late May in slender, nodding, downy racemes, 11⁄2 to 2 in. long, carrying six to twelve blossoms. Corolla pitcher-shaped, white, 3⁄16 in. long, much contracted at the mouth, where are five short recurved lobes; calyx-lobes ovate, pointed, 1⁄16 in. long, edged with hairs; flower-stalks slender, 3⁄4 in. long, glabrous except at the base; seed-vessel egg-shaped, 1⁄6 in. long.
Native of Japan; collected in the Central Province by Maries in 1878; introduced to cultivation by Prof. Sargent in 1892, from the Nikko Mountains. It is hardy at Kew, but slow-growing. It has not much beauty of flower, but its foliage turns bright red in autumn. To some extent it resembles E. perulatus, having the same white pitcher-shaped corolla, but it is smaller and has not the five rounded protuberances at the base as in perulatus; the inflorescence too is racemose instead of fasciculate; and finally the fruits are pendulous (not held erect on a stiff, straight pedicel as in perulatus).
E. nudipes (Honda) Ueno – A closely related species, differing chiefly in its glabrous racemes. Native of Central Japan.