Abelia parvifolia (Schumann abelia)

Native to central China (west Sichuan Province), where it occurs at 1,200–3,600 m above sea level.

A deciduous shrub up to around 2 m tall, with slender, arching branches. The young twigs are purple and covered with downy hairs. The leaves are green, ovate, rounded at the tip and up to about 3 cm long by about 1 cm wide. The funnel-shaped flowers are rose-pink with orange markings and up to about 1.5 cm long, and bloom from May to August.

Abelia parvifolia (under the name A. longituba) by J.N. Fitch, after a watercolour by Matilda Smith, from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1919).

This hand-coloured lithograph of Abelia parvifolia was painted from a plant “presented to the Kew collection by Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, in 1915”(Curtis’s Botanical Magazine).

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Editor: Martyn Rix) provides an international forum of particular interest to botanists and horticulturists, plant ecologists and those with a special interest in botanical illustration.

Now well over two hundred years old, the Magazine is the longest running botanical periodical featuring colour illustrations of plants. Each four-part volume contains 24 plant portraits reproduced from watercolour originals by leading international botanical artists. Detailed but accessible articles combine horticultural and botanical information, history, conservation and economic uses of the plants described.

Published for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
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Abelia parvifolia is cultivated as an ornamental. It has received an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society (under the synonym Abelia schumannii).

Abelia parvifolia performs best in full sun, in moist but well-drained soil. It can be propagated by cuttings.

Abelia parvifolia (currently labelled Abelia schumannii) is grown to the south of the Stable Yard at Kew.

Alcohol-preserved and pressed and dried specimens of other species of Abelia are held in Kew’s Herbarium, where they are available to researchers by appointment. The details of some of these can be seen online in the Herbarium Catalogue.

Search Kew's databases for more information on this species

Barnes Botany – Abelia in cultivation

Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Wiley-Blackwell)