A deciduous shrub of graceful, spreading habit, up to 6 ft high; young shoots slender, quite glabrous. Leaves in pairs or threes, oblong or inclined to ovate, the base rounded or slightly heart-shaped, the apex bluntish or broad-pointed, 1⁄2 to 1 in. long, 3⁄16 to 3⁄8 in. wide, dull rather glaucous green, quite glabrous; stalk 1⁄12 in. long. Flowers in axillary pairs, produced on a slender stalk 1⁄4 in. long during May and June from the lower and middle joints of the young shoots, soft lilac in colour, lilac-scented. Corolla-tube 1⁄2 in. long, slender, cylindrical, glabrous outside, hairy within; the flower is 1⁄2 in. across the rounded-ovate lobes. Calyx-lobes lance-shaped, glabrous. Style quite short. Fruits red. Bot. Mag., t. 7989.
Native of China and Tibet; introduced about 1890. A very elegant and pleasing shrub, with delicately coloured and charmingly fragrant flowers, which are not always abundantly borne. It is allied to L. thibetica and L. tomentella, differing in the quite glabrous leaves.
var. wolfii Rehd. – Of lower, more spreading habit. Leaves longer and relatively narrower; calyx-teeth ciliate, connate at the base; flowers deeper pink. Described from a plant introduced from Central China by the nursery firm of Kesselring and Regel, late in the 19th century. Some of the plants grown under this name in British gardens scarcely differ from typical L. syringantha.