A deciduous shrub, 3 to 7 ft high, of dense, bushy habit; branches thin, densely leafy, spreading, very downy. Leaves oval or ovate, with a rounded base, 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 in. long, 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. wide, dark dull green above, hairy and somewhat glaucous beneath; stalk 1⁄12 in. long. Flowers produced in August and September in short, dense clusters in all the leaf-axils from the lower side of the twigs. Corolla bell-shaped, 1⁄8 in. long, dull white, the style hairy. Berries purplish red, between egg-shaped and globose, 1⁄6 in. long.
Native of the USA, where it is widely distributed from the Atlantic States to S. Dakota, Kansas and Texas; also of Mexico; in cultivation 1732. A neat bush with the leaves arranged in opposite rows on the branches, but with little beauty of flower. The fruits are pretty, and when freely borne make the shrub extremely ornamental in autumn and winter, but it does not bear fruit so freely in this country as in its native one, except after a hot summer.
f. leucocarpus (D. M. Andrews) Rehd. – Fruits white.
cv. ‘Foliis Variegatis’ (‘Variegatus’). – Leaves smaller than in the type, bordered unevenly with yellow. A good variegated shrub, raised before 1837 (S. glomerata fol. varieg. Loddiges ex Loud.). It is inclined to revert if grown in too much shade.
S. orbiculatus differs from all the rest of the species here mentioned in having a downy style and red berries. These characters and the long array of short flower-spikes beneath the branches make it the most distinct of the cultivated members of this genus.
S. × chenaultii Rehd. – An upright shrub 5 or 6 ft high, much branched, the young shoots downy. Leaves ovate, to about 7⁄8 in. long, dark green above, glaucous and densely hairy beneath. Flowers in short spikes; corolla funnel-campanulate, the tube about twice as long as the lobes. Fruits globose, ripe in late autumn, stippled with red on the exposed side. A hybrid between S. orbiculatus and the Mexican S. microphyllus (see under S. rotundifolius), raised by Messrs Chenault of Orleans early this century but of comparatively recent introduction to Britain. It is a parent of some of the Doorenbos hybrids.
S. × chenaultii ‘Hancock’, raised in Canada about 1940, is of procumbent habit and attains in time a considerable width by self-layering. It has been recommended as a ground-cover.