Forked viburnum

Family Caprifoliaceae. Distributed on Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, in Japan and Korea, where it grows on mountain slopes in stone birch forests, in the understorey of coniferous and mixed forests and at forest edges. It forms shrubby thickets on clearings and burnt areas.

Grows as a shrub up to 2(4) m high, with forked branching. Smooth, reddish or grayish-brown branches are directed upwards; young shoots yellowish, stellate-pubescent. Leaves thin, broadly ovate, up to 25 cm long, apex blunt or tapered to a short point, toothed along the margin. The upper surface of the blade is dark yellowish-green, almost glabrous; beneath - at first entirely woolly-felted, later pubescent only along the veins. In autumn the leaves turn bright lilac-raspberry tones, greatly adorning the plants. Flowers white (sterile up to 3 cm, fertile up to 0.8 cm), gathered in complex umbel-like inflorescences up to 10 cm in diameter. Fruits elongated, fleshy, up to 1 cm in diameter, first red, at maturity black. In cultivation since 1892.

It is surprising that such a shrub (by the way, very popular in Western Europe since 1892) is still not used in landscaping here.