A loose, open, deciduous shrub growing with a loose spreading habit. It has deciduous leaves and sweet-scented showy white flowers with lavender-to-pink tinged tubes, and 5 narrow, petal-like spreading lobes and showy stamens. Leaves turn orange to maroon in the fall. This typical wetland shrub has very sticky petals, hence the species name denoting "sticky" in Latin. The flowers appear after the leaves.