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Botanical Name: Lagerstroemia sp. White-flowered Form
Common Name: White Crapemyrtle
Origin: Southeast Asia
Location: KS
Notable Feature: The crapemyrtle is an outstanding ornamental that rewards with a long blooming season of showy flowers, and a winter season highlighted with distinctive exfoliating bark.
Habit: A small, vase-shaped, deciduous, multistemmed tree reaching 6 to 15 feet high and about as wide. Its attractive taupe bark exfoliates when young to reveal a smooth, pale creamy inner bark which becomes quite prominent in the winter landscape.
Flower: Showy clusters of 6 to 10-inch long white flowers with crimped petals (appearing as if made of crepe paper) bloom in summer at the ends of upright branches. Flowers are perfect (bisexual).
Fruit: The fruit is a 6-chambered, brown capsule occurring in popcorn-like clusters in upright spikes. Each capsule is ½” long and persists through the winter; it contains many small, winged seeds.
Foliage: Thick and leathery, elliptical leaves (to 3" long) emerge light green often with a tinge of red, mature to dark green by summer, and finally turn attractive shades of yellow.
Interesting Fact: Crape (sometimes spelled crepe) myrtles are not myrtles at all; the myrtle in their name looks similar to the leaf shape that resembles true myrtle. The word ‘crape’ is obvious once you see one in bloom -- the flowers are crinkly and look like they are made of crepe paper.