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Syringa josikaea
Also called Deep Flowered German Lilac
Hungarian lilac is a deciduous shrub or small tree from the Carpathian Mountains, grown for its fragrant dark pink flowers in early summer. It is hardy and easy to grow in cool to temperate gardens; the main requirement is sun to light shade.
Syringa josikaea, the Hungarian lilac, or Lady Josika's lilac is a species of lilac in the olive family Oleaceae, native to central and eastern Europe, in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania and western Ukraine. A large shrub, it has a very restricted range, although fossils assigned to the species suggest a much wider prehistoric distribution in central Europe. Today it is threatened in the wild by habitat destruction, but is also commonly used in gardening.
Growing conditions allow for cool to temperate climate and are fully frost hardy. The plant also grows in full sun to semi shade. Despite its continental European origin, it has proved to be surprisingly successful when cultivated in the oceanic extremes of northwestern Europe on the Faroe Islands and in arctic northern Norway north to Kirkenes.
It has hybridised in cultivation with the closely related Syringa komarowii from China; the hybrid is named Syringa × josiflexa.
The Hungarian lilac is endemic to the Carpathians of Transylvania and western Ukraine. It occurs only in two populations in the Romanian Apuseni Mountains and the Ukrainian Carpathians, with only a handful locations known for each population. Most locations only consist of a limited number of individuals, estimated at less than 1000 for the Ukrainian population. However, the total number of individuals is difficult to estimate due to vigorous clonal reproduction, which seems to predominate over sexual reproduction. The species has declined in recent decades and is therefore listed as endangered, with populations continuing to decline. Threats are mainly anthropogenic in nature; the species suffers mainly from the destruction of its favoured habitats near streams and rivers due to road construction, river damming and habitat conversion.
Nodding Lilac · Syringa reticulata subsp. pekinensis · Syringa pinnatifolia · Daphne Lilac · Japanese tree lilac · Villous lilac · Common Lilac · Lilac
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Syringa josikaea 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.
