A deciduous shrub up to 8 or 10 ft high, with more or less erect stems, but making a shapely bush; young shoots round, not downy. Leaves pinnate, up to more than 12 in. long, consisting of eleven to seventeen leaflets which are 2 to 31⁄2 in. long, 1⁄2 to 1 in. wide, lanceolate, with a long, slender, often curved point, doubly toothed, sometimes slightly downy on the veins beneath; veins in twenty-five or more pairs. Flower-panicles narrowly pyramidal, borne in July and August at the end of leafy shoots, 6 to 12 in. long, with their branches erect. Flowers white, 3⁄8 in. wide, with about twenty conspicuous stamens; calyx glabrous.
S. assurgens was raised by the firm of Vilmorin from seeds received from China in 1896, probably sent by one of the French missionaries. They first flowered it at Verrières, near Paris, in 1900 and sent it to Kew in 1903. It is allied to S. sorbifolia, which differs in having twice as many stamens in each flower but fewer (about twenty) veins to each leaflet. It is a worthy member of a hardy genus, but not the most striking.