This makes a handsome, high quality large shrub or tree-shrub. It is slow growing to usually grow about 8 to 12 feet high x 8 to 12 feet wide, and a little larger in nature. It is native to rich, wet, acidic soils of floodplain forests and swamp edges in dappled sun to full shade in a range from Virginia to central Florida to east Texas to Missouri to southern Illinois & Indiana, plus one site in northeast Illinois in Kankakee County. In landscapes it can grow in full sun, though part shade is best, in a location protected from strong winds with acid, good quality soil. Possibility Place , a wholesale native plant nursery in Monee, Illinois near Joliet, sells some as small plants. They got their stock from Morton Arboretum that collected seed from Kankakee County not that far to their southeast. In September 2019 I saw a few young tree-shrubs in protective cages in what was the Ozark Collection on the west side of Morton Arboretum. I hope this lovely species can become much more common, instead of being a rare or very uncommon species.

Reply to this comment

This plant is native to the southeastern United States.

It grows in swamp forests and along stream banks and blooms April through June.

Reply to this comment