Reeves' Meadowsweet

Shrubs to 1.5 m tall. Branchlets arching, dark red-brown, turning gray-brown when old, slender, terete, glabrous or pubescent; buds ovoid, small, with several scales, glabrous or puberulous apically or on scale margins. Petiole 4–7 mm, glabrous; leaf blade gray-blue abaxially, dark green adaxially, rhombic-lanceolate to rhombic-oblong, 2–8 × 0.7–2 cm, glabrous or abaxially pubescent, pinnately veined, base cuneate, margin incised serrate above middle, apex acute. Umbels pedunculate, 3–4 × 2–3.5 cm, many flowered; rachis and pedicels glabrous or pubescent; pedicels 8–14 mm; bracts linear to lanceolate, 2–3 mm, glabrous or pubescent. Flowers 5–7 mm in diam. Hypanthium campanulate, glabrous or abaxially pubescent. Sepals triangular or ovate-triangular, 1–1.5 × 1.5–2 mm, erect in fruit, apex acute or shortly acuminate. Petals white, suborbicular or obovate, 2.5–4 × 3–4.5 mm, apex emarginate or obtuse. Stamens 20–28, slightly shorter than to nearly equaling petals. Disk annular, lobed; lobes unequal, suborbicular, apex emarginate. Styles shorter than stamens. Follicles straightly spreading, glabrous; styles terminal, usually divergent. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jul–Sep.

China, often cultivated in N. India & Japan.

Native at least in N Jiangxi; widely cultivated elsewhere in China [Japan].

1200-1800 m

Slopes; 200--300 m.