''Enkianthus'' is a genus of shrubs or small trees in the heath family (

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

). Its native range is in Asia, as far west as the eastern

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

, as far south as

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

, and as far north and east as China and Japan. This genus is considered

cladistically Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

the most basal member of the Ericaceae, that is, the descendant of the common ancestor of that Ericaceae that branched earliest from the rest of that family. It is classified as the sole member of the subfamily Enkianthoideae.

Species

Twelve to fifteen species are included in the genus by various authors.Sarwar, A. and H. Takahashi (2006)
Pollen morphology of ''Enkianthus'' (Ericaceae) and its taxonomic significance.
''Grana'' 45 161-74. Species include:''Enkianthus''.
BioLib.cz.

Cultivation

Several species are found in cultivation, notably ''E. campanulatus'', ''E. cernuus'' and ''E. perulatus''. ''E. cernuus'' f. ''rubens'' (drooping red enkianthus) has gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

’s Award of Garden Merit.

References

Ericaceae Ericaceae genera {{ericaceae-stub