Hydrangea paniculataSiebold

panicle hydrangeapanicled hydrangea

WFO wfo-0001135530 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. a Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-09-03 / obs. 50583229
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. b Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 22878095
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Pedro Henrique Maloso Ramos
fig. c Pedro Henrique Maloso Ramos, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 21682209
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Aaron Liston
fig. d Aaron Liston, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9555189
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177522642
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. f Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 44480985
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. g Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 91924509
Hydrangea paniculata, photographed by Lek Khauv
fig. h Lek Khauv, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 50580821

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 7 botanical countries

Regions where Hydrangea paniculata is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Kuril Is., Sakhalin, Taiwan China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanSakhalinTaiwan
Native distribution of Hydrangea paniculata, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Kuril Is. KUR
Sakhalin SAK
Taiwan TAI

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 210 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.4 °C -8.0 °C 2.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.3 °C 22.8 °C 29.6 °C
Annual rainfall 676 mm 1,639 mm 3,864 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 98 mm 210 mm 576 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 210 research-grade observations of Hydrangea paniculata that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 24 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Heteromalla paniculata (Siebold) H.Ohba & S.Akiyama
  • Heteromalla paniculata f. debilis (Nakai ex H.Hara) H.Ohba & S.Akiyama
  • Heteromalla paniculata f. grandiflora (Siebold ex Courtin) H.Ohba & S.Akiyama
  • Heteromalla paniculata f. velutina (Nakai) H.Ohba & S.Akiyama
  • Hydrangea kamienskii H.Lév.
  • Hydrangea paniculata f. debilis (Nakai ex H.Hara) Sugim.
  • Hydrangea paniculata f. grandiflora (Siebold ex Courtin) Schelle
  • Hydrangea paniculata f. praecox (Rehder) Rehder
  • Hydrangea paniculata f. velutina (Nakai) H.Ohba
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. debilis Nakai
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. debilis Nakai ex H.Hara
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. depressa Nakai
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. grandiflora Siebold ex Courtin
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. hortensis Maxim.
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. intermedia H.Boissieu
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. laeta Nakai
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. minor Maxim.
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. praecox Rehder
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. thermalis Miyabe & Tatew.
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. vegeta Nakai
  • Hydrangea paniculata var. velutina Nakai
  • Hydrangea sachalinensis H.Lév.
  • Hydrangea schindleri Engl.
  • Hydrangea verticillata W.H.Gao

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.