General Plant Information (Edit)
Plant Habit: Shrub
Life cycle: Perennial
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Full Sun to Partial Shade
Water Preferences: Wet Mesic
Mesic
Dry Mesic
Soil pH Preferences: Moderately acid (5.6 – 6.0)
Slightly acid (6.1 – 6.5)
Neutral (6.6 – 7.3)
Slightly alkaline (7.4 – 7.8)
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 3 -40 °C (-40 °F) to -37.2 °C (-35)
Maximum recommended zone: Zone 7b
Plant Height: 6 to 12 feet
Plant Spread: 8 to 15 feet
Leaves: Unusual foliage color
Semi-evergreen
Deciduous
Fragrant
Fruit: Showy
Edible to birds
Fruiting Time: Late winter or early spring
Late summer or early fall
Fall
Late fall or early winter
Winter
Flowers: Inconspicuous
Blooms on old wood
Flower Time: Spring
Underground structures: Rhizome
Suitable Locations: Beach Front
Uses: Windbreak or Hedge
Will Naturalize
Dynamic Accumulator: Nitrogen fixer
Wildlife Attractant: Birds
Resistances: Deer Resistant
Rabbit Resistant
Flood Resistant
Drought tolerant
Salt tolerant
Propagation: Other methods: Cuttings: Stem
Pollinators: Wind
Containers: Not suitable for containers
Miscellaneous: Tolerates poor soil
Dioecious
Conservation status: Least Concern (LC)

Conservation status:
Conservation status: Least Concern
Image
Common names
  • Northern Bayberry
Botanical names
  • Accepted: Morella pensylvanica
  • Synonym: Myrica pensylvanica
  • Synonym: Morella x macfarlanei
  • Synonym: Myrica x macfarlanei

Photo Gallery
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2022-10-11
a planted row along a parking lot
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: winter in 2010
waxy gray fruit on upper shrub at a bank
Location: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Date: 2017-05-02
flowers
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2010-07-03
full-grown shrub in large parking lot island
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2007-12-28
gray fruit on branches
Location: Lionville (Exton), Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-23
shrubs in parking lot island
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2007-12-28
gray waxy-coated berries without foliage
Location: Photo taken in my garden after a snow.
Date: 2011-11-22
Location: Lionville (Exton), Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-23
gray fruit of female plant
Location: Elizabethan Gardens, Dare County, North Carolina | June, 2022
Date: 2022-06-12
Location: West rock garden
Date: August 2015
Newly planted
Location: southern New Jersey
Date: 2013-08-10
mature shrub in summer
Location: near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Date: late summer 2014
a wild shrub
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2010-07-11
full-grown shrubs in driveway island
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2010-07-03
maturing shrubs in parking lot island
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2010-07-03
summer foliage
Location: Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Date: 2016-09-14
gray fruit with foliage
Location: My garden in N E Pa. 
Date: 2011-03-03
These are the berries for making Bayberry candles.
This plant is tagged in:
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Comments:
  • Posted by ILPARW (southeast Pennsylvania - Zone 6b) on Dec 28, 2017 10:19 PM concerning plant:
    I've seen lots of wild Northern Bayberry shrubs around the shore of central & southern Delaware. Many homeowners there that keep a natural beach landscape, keep the wild plants in their yard, along with Adams-needle Yuccas, Beach Plums, and Groundselbush. This species is native to the coastal area of New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia to just over the North Carolina border, and in southern Pennsylvania and near Lake Eire in northwest PA & northeast OH, growing in swamps, tidal marshlands, dunes, lakeshores, and banks of watercourses and ponds. It loves acid, sandy soil but does well also in heavy clay soils. It is sold by many conventional and native plant nurseries. Landscape designers use it in estates, parks, public places, campuses, shopping centers, office parks, and such. I only see very few in most homeowner yards, as they don't know it. The female plants bear the gray, waxy berries that are loved by birds. It does fix nitrogen to the soil. It grows about 1.5 feet/year and is easy to transplant. It does do some ground suckering from rhizomes. It is semi--evergreen and does not really get fall color. It looks like a broadleaf evergreen, and even though it is not, it blends well (is compatible with) with many broadleaf evergreens.
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christine2 On May 1, 2008 Obtained plant
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