Tall false-buck's-beard is better known in American gardens as Chinese astilbe, a shade grown for its feathery plumes of tiny pink to mauve flowers in midsummer. Native to Korea, China, the Russian Far East, and a corner of Japan, it is one of the parents of many garden astilbes, and deer tend to leave it alone.
Appearance
- Appearance
- A clump-forming perennial 16–35 in (40–90 cm) tall, with a mound of deeply cut, dark green leaves.
- Leaves
- Mostly at the base, divided into threes, with sharply toothed, hairy, oval leaflets.
- Flowers
- Tiny flowers packed into narrow, upright plumes held above the leaves. The wild form is rosy white to pink; garden selections come in pink, salmon, rose, and lavender.
- Flowering time
- July to August in Chicago-area gardens. The dried seed heads stay attractive after bloom.
Look-alikes
Goatsbeard is much bigger, with leafy mounds 3–4 ft (90–120 cm) tall, and its airy plumes are always creamy white. Male and female flowers grow on separate plants. Chinese astilbe is shorter, with pink to mauve plumes.
Why they get mixed upIts feathery flower plumes look like a large, airy astilbe, even though the two are not closely related.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Shady stream banks
- Edges of damp broadleaf forests
- Range
- Native to East Asia: Korea, China, the Russian Far East, and Japan's Tsushima Island. In the U.S. it is a garden plant, not a native wildflower.
- Preferred conditions
- In the wild it grows along shaded streams and rivers and at the edges of damp, open forests.
- Flowering
Flowers Jul–Aug
Flowers Jul–Aug
Growing it
- Care
- Hardy in USDA zones 5–9. Give it partial to full shade and rich soil that never dries out. Deer tend to leave it alone. Heat and drought are its main troubles.
- Propagation
- Grown from seed or by dividing clumps.
Name and classification
- About the name
- Botanists have long disagreed on whether Astilbe rubra is a separate species or the same plant as Astilbe chinensis. Astilbe davidii is now treated as a variety of this species.
- Varieties and forms
- Popular forms include dwarf var. pumila (mauve), used as a shady groundcover, and the taller rose-mauve 'Superba'.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- Many garden astilbes, such as the Arendsii hybrids, were bred by crossing Chinese astilbe with Japanese species.
More species to explore
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