Hydrangea anomala

{{Short description|Species of flowering plant in the family Hydrangeaceae}}

{{Speciesbox

|image = Hydrangea anomala, May 2016.jpg

|image_caption = Hydrangea anomala

|genus = Hydrangea

|species = anomala

|authority = D.Don

|synonyms =

{{Collapsible list |

{{Plainlist | style = margin-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; |

• Hydrangea altissima Wall.
• Hydrangea glabra Hayata
• Hydrangea glaucophylla C.C. Yang

}}

}}

|synonyms_ref = {{cite web

|url=http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/tro-29101278

|title=The Plant List: A Working List of All Plant Species

|accessdate=April 3, 2014}}

}}

Hydrangea anomala, the Japanese climbing-hydrangea,{{BSBI 2007 |accessdate=2014-10-17 }} is a species of flowering plant in the family Hydrangeaceae native to the woodlands of the Himalaya, southern and central China and northern Myanmar.

It is a woody climbing plant, growing to 12 m height up trees or rock faces, climbing by means of small aerial roots on the stems. The leaves are deciduous, ovate, 7–13 cm long and 4–10 cm broad, with a heart-shaped base, coarsely serrated margin and acute apex. The flowers are produced in flat corymbs 5–15 cm diameter in mid-summer; each corymb includes a small number of peripheral sterile white flowers 2–3.5 cm across, and numerous small, creamy-white fertile flowers 1–2 mm diameter. The fruit is a dry urn-shaped capsule 3–5 mm diameter containing several small winged seeds.

The closely related Hydrangea petiolaris from eastern Siberia, Japan, and Korea, is sometimes treated as a subspecies of H. anomala; it differs in growing larger (to 20 m) and flower corymbs up to 25 cm diameter. The common name Climbing hydrangea is applied to both species.