I have not heard of this plant until very recently. My old woody plant teacher of Dr. Michael Dirr briefly mentions this plant his huge textbook of Manuel of Woody Landscape Plants in the 1998 edition under the name of H. arborescens discolor, along with the similar H. arborescens radiata, and there is not a lot of info about Ashy Hydrangea online. It looks a little different from the well-known and much more common Smooth Hydrangea of H. arborescens. Being a lumper, I would consider it as a natural variety or subspecies rather than another species. One difference is it gets its ashy name from having dense pubescent gray hair on the undersides of the leaves. It does tolerate some heat and drought. Its native range is from West Virginia to southern Illinois to east Oklahoma to Georgia and the Carolinas.

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