This Possumhaw or Smooth Viburnum or Smooth Witherrod is a lovely large shrub with a native range from eastern Texas to central Florida and up the eastern coast to Rhode Island in swamps, bogs, creek bottomlands, and in rich upland woods. It has thick textured glossy foliage that turns red or purplish-red in autumn. It has white terminal flat-topped flower clusters about 3 to 5 inches across in June to early July that sort of stink like some other viburnums. The football-shaped berries start whitish to pink to red and mature as blue-black in September-October, and are loved by birds and some small mammals. It has a shallow, fibrous root system and is easy to transplant. It grows at a medium rate of about 1.5 feet/year. The mother species is not planted in landscapes nearly as much as a few cultivars of which 'Winterthur' is the most common. Some nurseries sell the mother species as a companion to a cultivar for cross-pollination for more fruit production. Possumhaw or the Smooth Viburnum is very similar to the Witherrod Viburnum (Viburnum cassinoides) except the former has shinier leaves that usually are not toothed or just obscurely toothed on the margins, the twigs are only slightly scurfy, and the flower clusters with the main stalk longer than cluster branches rather than shorter as with the latter.

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