reminds m ofHydrangea anomala

Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris. It grows slowly at first but becomes very robust. The Maple will likely keep it from performing at its best.

Oh, neat! I love hydrangeas. The flowers reminded me of them, but there were so few I thought it had to be something else. In googling it, I see it bloomed very sparsely indeed.

Is this blooming now? If so, unlikely to be the hydrangea, as these are barely even leafed out at this time of year west of the Cascades, let alone showing flowers. Flower clusters don't look quite right either.

Are there four petals on the sterile florets? They are not clearly visible .

Gardengal, this photo is from last year. the plant is just starting to leaf out now, but it seemed like it would be more helpful to show it in bloom. :)

Carol, I think so--from memory.

In which case, I agree it is the hydrangea :-) But those flowerheads are very sparse and skimpy - usually they produce full lacecap type flowers.

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I don't think it can be anything else but Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris.

The otherwise generally similar looking one, with its sterile flowers on the margin of the flower head having a single "petal" instead of 3-4 is Schizophragma hydrangeoides.

There is another climbing Hydrangea native to the southeastern US, but the flowers are quite different.

Decumaria barbara

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=deba4