A vigorous shrub of spreading habit with pinkish young shoots. Leaves as in E. racemosa, but the petioles and veins usually pinkish and remaining so through the summer. Flowers six to eight in a terminal raceme, those near the apex almost sessile, the lower ones short-stalked; calyx with a red margin; petals pure white, obovate, 1 in. long and 1⁄2 in. wide, tapered into the claw; stamens twenty to thirty (cf. E. racemosa, in which the stamens number fifteen to twenty-five and the petals are almost orbicular, abruptly narrowed at the base into a short claw).
Native of N.W. China; introduced by the missionary Giraldi and first distributed by Hesse’s nurseries at Weener near Hanover; introduced to England in 1909. This exochorda is closely allied to E. racemosa but is, perhaps, a better garden shrub.
var. wilsonii (Rehd.) Rehd. E. racemosa var. wilsonii Rehd. – Habit more erect; leaf-stalks shorter, green. Stamens twenty to twenty-five. Introduced by Wilson in 1907. ‘Irish Pearl’, raised at the Glasnevin Botanic Garden, is a hybrid between this variety and E. racemosa.
E. serratifolia S. Moore – This species may be distinguished from E. giraldii by the leaves, which are sharply serrate above the middle and up to 2 in. wide. Petals narrow oblong-obovate, notched at the apex. Native of Korea and Manchuria. Rare in cultivation.