Lottah Nursery Tasmania, Australia

Syringa x chinensis Duplex

Bred by Lemoine in 1897, with the name being registered in 1953.

'Duplex' has a chequered history of having been considered lost to western cultivation for many years until re-discovered growing at the Central Botanic Gardens in Kiev, Russia.

British ILS member Colin Chapman made a public appeal for a source of this cultivar in 1995, and within five years propagules had made their way from Russia through Denmark, U.K. and North America down to Lottah.

Unique amongst the small-leafed x chinensis cultivars in being a double, 'Duplex' bears lavender flowers on terminal as well as on axillary buds on willowy stems over an extended flowering season. Plants in vigorous condition bear fragrant flowers along 300 mm or more of their stems.

x chinensis hybrids are a cross of S. protolaciniata x S. vulgaris and are suited to growing as specimens, in massed plantings, or used for a superior hedging. Experience elsewhere suggests the hybrid requires less than normal winter chilling for flowering.

If typical of the hybrid it will grow into a largish shrub 3 x 2m. Limited local experience with this cultivar has shown it is inclined to sucker to some small extent.

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8468 (1, 7, 30, 91)