Article (newsletter)  (Nov 2017)  Page(s) 13.  
 
Wilson chanced across two varieties of R. giraldii, which Belgian botanist Francois Crepin had described in 1897, the year G. Giraldi had discovered it in Shensi province of China. The glabruiscula form shows small, rosy-pink flowers and glabrous leaves; the venulosa form is differentiated from the principle variety and the latter by its distinctive reticulation—a network of veins—on the underside of its leaves. The flowers are pink. According to Jack Harkness, given its decumbent canes, it is “a bush pretending to be a weeping willow.”