Spiraea arcuata - Arching Spirea

Arching Spirea is a small shrub with branches arched, dark brown, shining, stout, slightly angled, deeply grooved, hairless when old; buds long ovoid, with 2 scales. Leaf-stalks are short, slender, hairless or nearly hairless. Leaves are long elliptic to obovate, 8-12 x 3-5 mm, hairless or nearly so on both surfaces, base wedge-shaped, margin entire or bluntly 3-8-sawtoothed or lobed apically, tip blunt, rarely somewhat pointed. Flowers are borne in corymbs at branch-ends on short, lateral branchlets, compound, dense, many flowered. Axis and flower-stalks are finely velvet-hairy; flower-stalks short. Flowers are 6-8 mm in diameter. Hypanthium is top-shaped, velvet-hairy below. Sepals are triangular, reflexed in fruit, tip usually pointed. Petals are pink, nearly round, hairless. Stamens are slightly shorter than or nearly equaling petals. Disk is annular, broadly rounded toothed. Seed-pods are spreading, wholly protruding, shining, hairless, rarely finely velvet-hairy only on upper suture; styles at branch-ends on lower side, divergent. Arching Spirea is found in forests, thickets on river banks, river valleys, subalpine rocky places in the Himalayas at elevations of 3000-4200 m, from Garhwal to Sikkim, Bhutan, Tibet, N. Burma, W China. Flowering: May-July.