Itea yunnanensis

Itea, the sweetspires, are graceful shrubs of the family Iteaceae, their name taken from the Greek word for willow. Itea yunnanensis is the Yunnan sweetspire, an evergreen species from southwestern China, close to the Chinese sweetspire but lower and more spreading, with more leathery, darker green leaves that are somewhat holly-like and toothed on juvenile plants and smooth-edged at maturity. In spring the plant carries slender four-inch racemes of small white flowers.

A relatively new introduction, Itea yunnanensis was probably first offered in the United States by Woodlanders, and has grown well in the nursery's South Carolina trials and in central Florida under moist woodland conditions. Little known and seldom seen, the Yunnan sweetspire is a plant for the collector and the shade gardener looking for an uncommon, low, evergreen broadleaf.

The appeal is quiet: a low, spreading, evergreen mound of dark, leathery foliage, cleaner and more restrained than a flowering shrub, with the changing juvenile-to-mature leaf shape as a small botanical curiosity. The white spring racemes arch out over the dark leaves, softly fragrant and worked by bees, before the plant settles back to year-round green.

Use Yunnan sweetspire as a low evergreen layer in a shaded or woodland border, a foundation planting, or a collector's bed, where the spreading habit can knit along the ground and the spring flowers reward a close look. Give moist, well-drained soil in part to full shade, and pair with ferns, hydrangeas, camellias, and other broadleaf evergreens in cool, damp ground.

Photos courtesy of our friends at Nurseries Caroliniana.