A shrub 4 or 5 ft high, with glabrous, erect, angular stems, and curiously flat, leaf-like winter buds often 1⁄3 in. long. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, wedge-shaped at the base, sharply and deeply, often doubly, toothed, 11⁄2 to 3 in. long, 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in. wide, bright green and glabrous above, rather glaucous and hairy on the veins beneath when young; stalk 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long. Flowers white, 1⁄4 in. across, produced towards the end of May in broad, rounded, corymbose panicles 2 to 31⁄2 in. across and 1 to 2 in. long; stamens prominent; flower-stalk and calyx downy.
Native of W. China; described from specimens collected in Kansu but reported from as far south as Yunnan. It is a very pretty white-flowered spiraea, blossoming late enough to escape injury by frost, but now uncommon in cultivation. It was introduced towards the end of the last century and used to grow well at Grayswood Hill, Haslemere – the upper side of the branches wreathed with corymbs terminating long leafy twigs (Gardening Illustrated, 13 July, 1912). It is in cultivation at Kew.