Neillia thyrsiflora - White-Flowered Neillia

White-Flowered Neillia is an erect shrub, up to 2 m tall, with reddish, angled branchlets. Flowers are borne in panicles 6-15.5 cm in diameter, usually many flowered; flower-cluster-stalk and flower-stalks slightly velvet-hairy. Flowers are about 4 mm in diameter, white, flower-stalk about 3 mm. Hypanthium is bell-shaped, 2-3 mm, below velvet-hairy. Sepals are triangular, equaling hypanthium, margin entire, tip with a tail. Petals are white, obovate, about 2 mm. Stamens are 10-15. Buds are red-brown, ovoid, with 2 or 3 scales, tip blunt; often 2 or 3 buds superposed in axils of flowering branches. Leaf-stalks are 1-1.5 cm, nearly hairless; leaf blade ovate to ovate-elliptic, 6-8.5 x 4-6 cm, below sparsely velvet-hairy on veins or nearly hairless, base rounded or nearly heart-shaped, margin usually 3-parted, rarely with 3-5 equal lobes, sharply doubly sawtoothed, tip long tapering. Seed-pods are cylindric. Seeds ovoid. White-Flowered Neillia is found in Eastern Himalayas, at altitudes of 1000-3000 m, from Nepal to Bhutan, NE India, Indonesia, Java, Sumatra, Myanmar, N Vietnam. Flowering: June-July.