We have a H. aspera 'Plum Passion' too. The leaves are nicely colored. The flowers weren't much the first year. But now in a 5' size plant they are getting quite respectable, which I didn't expect. They slso can go through a neat transition white to pink, then pink to red and bending over (likes shady area but I suspect needs sufficient light to flower or color well).

Last photo taken this summer of a larger mega-container grown plant at Furney's in the SeaTac, WA area on northside of greenhouse with no overhead shade.

The taxonomy of this species is rather confused :-) Lacking any better documentation, I tend to go with Dirr and with the good but abbreviated species data from Heritage Hydrangeas.

Villosa, robusta and sargentiana are not cultivars but subspecies. 'Rocklon' and 'Sam McDonald' are classified under the villosa group; 'Macrophylla' under the sargentiana group. There is no cultivar 'Villosum' and many growers will list the subspecies incorrectly as a cultivar name, further confusing the issue. In Dirr's opinion, robusta offered larger foliage than sargentiana.

You may not get much feedback on your request for photos. This is a seriously less hardy species of hydrangea and is not often found outside the UK or the PNW. I grew both villosa and sargentiana in my old Shoreline garden but to be honest never noticed or paid much attention to the leaf size (BIG and fuzzy) or differences in inflorescense (both widely lacecap and variable in flower color). This species is not affected in coloring by soil pH or AL availability. And they all get to be quite large shrubs in preferred growing conditions - some selections of aspera currently growing at Heronswood are a good 15' tall and close to that in width.

You can cut these down low in winter and start them over to get a smaller, denser looking crown. It seems at least two horticultural hydrangea print monographs have been published in later years, I would study those when trying to sort hydrangeas out. Also with any wild species found in China I would look at the eFloras Flora of China web pages for taxonomic information including dichotomous keys.

Using the R.H.S. awards system as a basis Hydrangea aspera 'Macrophylla' and H. aspera (Villosa Group*) 'Velvet and Lace' are currently considered a couple of the better H. aspera in Britain. The latter is a newer name coined to distinguish material that had been sold there for years by Hillier Nurseries as H. villosa. I have no idea if this form is also present on the market over here, or if any of the stock here is being differentiated as 'Velvet and Lace'**.

H. aspera subsp. sargentiana is apt to become bare inside and clumsy looking if the planting site is not perfect for it.

Places in this region where you can see and study labeled H. aspera forms include U.B.C. Botanical Garden and

Van Dusen Botanical Garden

http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/cgi-bin/nph-readbtree.pl/dataset=vandpub/filename=names55?ETI=Hydrangea+aspera

both in Vancouver, Herons-wood in Kingston (currently under the direction of the same D. Hinkley who supplied Monrovia with what became H. aspera Plum Passion), and the

Washington Park Arboretum

http://depts.washington.edu/uwbg/gardens/BGBase.php?txtSearch=hydrangea+aspera&submitedits=&_submit_check=1

in Seattle.

Also if you are interested there is a row of the H. aspera Plum Passion along the east wall of the Edmonds Library.

*Group is a term used to indicate when more than one cultivar is grown under the same name. When this name is also Latin, as in Villosa Group it also shows that such plants are garden forms and not botanical entities occurring in nature. In this particular instance for example it was eventually decided H. villosa Rehder should instead be referred to as H. aspera Villosa Group.

**One thing that discerning shoppers may have to watch for is vendors mistakenly concluding that all H. aspera Villosa Group are to now be referred to as 'Velvet and Lace', resulting in other, lesser versions being offered under the name

I agree that there
is a lot of confusion as to the various names in this group of Hydrangeas. Most
of my plants came from either Herronswood or directly from Dan Hinkley at
sales, usually the Northwest Hort. Society sales, or at meetings. The mountain
asperas are easy to identify by the large fuzzy leaves and lace caps and unique exfoliating bark - as shown in one of the photos. Here are some photos from my garden in Shoreline, WA. I am not sure of the exact names of these - the tags have been lost but will try to identify exact names when they bloom again. The asperas are all late bloomers and each year I fear they have died and then the leaves break followed by the flower buds and show no real color until late July and stay beautiful right up to frost. While they don't knock your socks off - their tall stature and quiet beauty add to the late summer and fall garden.

Plum Passion backlit by the sun shows the fantastic red color. I was planted
at the top of the hill just for this reason. Gets quite of bit of sun - but does not
seem to mind.

Plum Passion in bloom

Plum Passion is a bee magnet! The bush is alive all summer. I can almost
touch them with the camera and they don't mind me at all. Too busy to care.

Aspera Chinese Big Leaf?