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Hamamelis mollis
Chinese witch hazel is a deciduous large shrub or small tree from China, widely grown for its strongly scented flowers in winter. It does best in a sunny or lightly shaded spot in well-drained, moist soil, and is hardy in temperate gardens.
Hamamelis mollis, also known as Chinese witch hazel, is a species of flowering plant in the witch hazel family Hamamelidaceae, native to central and eastern China, in Anhui, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, and Zhejiang.
It is a deciduous large shrub or small tree growing to 8 m (26 ft) tall. The leaves are oval, 8–15 cm (3+1⁄4–6 in) long and 6–10 cm (2+1⁄4–4 in) broad, oblique at the base, acute or rounded at the apex, with a wavy-toothed or shallowly lobed margin, and a short petiole 6–10 mm long; they are dark green and thinly hairy above, and grey beneath with dense grey hairs. The Latin term mollis means "soft", and refers to the felted leaves, which turn yellow in autumn.
H. mollis is widely grown as an ornamental plant, valued for the strongly-scented flowers appearing in winter when little else is growing. Numerous cultivars have been selected, for variation in flower colour and size, and in shrub size and habit. It is also one of the two parents of the popular garden hybrid H. × intermedia (the other parent is H. japonica).
The cultivars 'Jermyns Gold' and 'Wisley Supreme' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Hamamelis ×intermedia · Ozark witchhazel · American witchhazel · Witch-hazel
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hamamelis mollis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
