A modern reference to temperate woody plants, including updated content from this site and much new material, can be found at Trees and Shrubs Online.

Hydrangea heteromalla D. Don

Modern name

Hydrangea heteromalla D. Don

Synonyms

H. vestita Wall.; H. khasiana Hook. f. & Thoms.; H. dumicola W. W. Sm.;H. xanthoneura Diels; H. hypoglauca Rehd.; H. mandarinorum Diels (for a fuller list of synonyms see McClintock, op. cit., p. 215)

A deciduous shrub or small tree; young branchlets clad with short erect or appressed hairs, lenticellate; second-year stems with a close bark (but see cv. ‘Bretschneideri’). Leaves variable in shape, mostly ovate to broad-ovate, cuneate to rounded or sometimes cordate at the base, 312 to 8 in. long, 114 to 512 in. wide, serrate, glabrous or with scattered hairs above, the underside usually more or less densely coated with appressed or spreading hairs, but sometimes glabrous except for hairs on the veins; petiole 12 to 114 in. long. Inflorescence corymbose. Fertile flowers white, numerous, with usually ten stamens; ovary semi-inferior, i.e., its upper part projecting above the rim of the receptacle, which bears five triangular calyx-lobes about 110 in. long; styles two to four. Ray-flowers always present, white, 1 to 2 in. across. Capsules surmounted by the thickened bases of the styles and with the rim of the receptacle persisting at or slightly above the middle.

H. heteromalla ranges from the Himalayan region of Kumaon eastward and northward to western, west central and northern China. It was described from Nepal and introduced in 1821, though the present garden stock is wholly or for the most part of much more recent origin. It varies in leaf-shape and indumentum and numerous species have been made out of these variations, none of which is recognised by Miss McClintock – hence the long list of synonyms.

Before the publication of Miss McClintock’s monograph the name H. heteromalla was used in a narrower sense for a hydrangea fairly common in collections, with leaves 3 to 8 in. long, 112 to 3 in. wide, covered with a close tomentum beneath, with reddish petioles. It is of erect habit, flowers in July and August, and attains a height of 20 ft or more in the milder parts. It is quite hardy south of London and often produces self-sown offspring in great abundance. Other forms of the species were introduced from China by Wilson and by Forrest, but none of these are on the average any better than the more typical form of the species.

cv. ‘Bretschneideri’. – A shrub 8 to 10 ft high, forming a sturdy bush; second-year stems chestnut-brown, peeling. Leaves oblong to ovate, 3 to 5 in. long, 1 to 214 in. wide, sparsely hairy beneath. Corymbs flattened, 4 to 6 in. wide (H. bretschneideri Dipp.; H. pekinensis Hort.).

This hydrangea was very properly included by Miss McClintock in H. heteromalla without distinction, but it seems reasonable to maintain the name at the level of cultivar, on the grounds that all the plants under the name H. bretschneideri descend from seeds collected by Dr. Bretschneider in the mountains near Peking and probably represent a clone or at least a group of similar clones. The type of the species was one of these plants. ‘Bretschneideri’ is easy to distinguish from other forms of H. heteromalla by its peeling second-year bark, and is probably the most suitable for general cultivation, being completely hardy and of moderate size.



From the Supplement (Vol. V)

This was reintroduced by the University of North Wales Expedition to east Nepal in 1971 (B.L. & M. 222), and later by Roy Lancaster from Mount Omei in western Szechwan, China.