False Lily-of-the-Valley. Plant Lust says: "Clusters of sweet smelling, white stars above the foliage April through May on a good looking evergreen woodland ground cover. 8-10 in. tall stems on slowly expanding, dense rhizomes; leaves resemble Lily-of-the-Valley. Light to full shade, average moisture in well-drained soil. Nice for the woodland." This charming evergreen groundcover gets its species name from Lily-of-the-Valley which belongs to the genus Convallaria. In Latin the botanical expression "oides" means "like." So the species name translates from Latin to mean "lily-of-the-valley-like". And that is wonderful, because here in zone 8, lily-of-the-valley just will not grow well at all. It just exists. So now we have the perfect substitute, and it is evergreen. It makes an awesome slow spreading impenetrable clump of lush foliage topped in April and May with little fragrant white stars atop 6 in. stems. It is reported to be hardy in USDA zone 7. It is a monotypic genus, meaning that it is the only species within this genus. In its native China it grows in the wild on hilly broadleaf forests up to 3,000' elevation in the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. Plant Delights says that it is more hardy than most references indicate.
Zones 5b-9
