Cutleaf lilac

Description

Syringa protolaciniata is a broadly upright and gracefully leafy shrub with lilac-blue flowers of thegenus Lilac (Syringa) inthe olive family (Oleaceae). The natural range is in southwest China. The species is sometimes used as an ornamental shrub. Syringa protolaciniata is a 0.5 to 3 meter tall, broadly upright shrub. The branches are square and bare. Terminal buds are present. The leaves are sessile or have a bare stem up to 2.5 centimeters long. The leaf blade is pinnate divided into three to nine segments, 1 to 4 inches long and 0.4 to 2.5 inches wide. The leaf blade and lobes are lanceolate, elliptic, ovate or obovate, glabrous and covered with conspicuous punctate glands on the underside. The leaf end is pointed or blunt, the base wedge-shaped. The flowers grow in lateral panicles that are 2 to 10 centimeters long and are often clustered in larger numbers in the higher parts of the branches. The inflorescence axis is bare. The flower stalk is thin, 2 to 6 millimeters long and bare. The calyx is 1.5 to 2 millimeters long and also bald. The corolla is 1 to 2 centimeters wide and purple-blue. The corolla tube is 0.7 to 1.2 inches long and more or less cylindrical. The corolla lobes are ovate to narrowly elliptical and spread out. The anthers are yellow-green and are about 2 millimeters below the throat. The fruits are 0.8 to 1.5 centimeters long, square, smooth capsuleseducated. Syringa protolaciniata flowers from April to June, the fruits ripen from June to August. The chromosome number is 2n = 46. The natural range is in southwest China, east and south of Gansu Province, and east of Qinghai. Syringa protolaciniata grows in forests on steep mountain slopes at altitudes of 800 to 1200 meters on dry to fresh, slightly acidic to strongly alkaline, sandy-humic or loamy-humic, moderately nutrient-rich soils in sunny to light-shaded locations. The species is frost hardy. It is assigned to hardiness zone 6b with mean annual minimum temperatures of −20.5 to −17.8 °C. Syringa protolaciniata is a species of the genus Syringa in the olive family (Oleaceae). There the genus of the tribe Oleeae is assigned. The species was first scientifically described by Peter Shaw Green and Mei Chen Chang in 1989. The genus name Syringa was chosen by Linnaeus in 1753, previously from around the 16th century the name was used for both the common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) as well as for the European chanterelle tree (Philadelphus coronarius).