Description

Leaves: Alternate; simple; heart-shaped; 3" to 5" wide; deciduous; entire margin; angled or pointed at the tip; usually glabrous; purple when young, turning dark green when mature; nice yellow fall color; petiole long, slender.

Twigs/buds: Twigs usually zigzag; bark on twigs glossy brown.  No terminal bud; lateral buds small, blunt, scaly, chestnut-brown, possible with another, smaller bud present just below it.

Flowers/fruit: Flowers perfecct, beautiful, purple-pink, pea-like (white on one cultivar); appear before the leaves in April; flower buds round and borne in groups on stalks.  Fruit a legume; short-stalked; flat; brown; 2" to 4" long; 1/2" wide; pointed on both ends; contains 8 to 12 brown, hard seeds.

Bark: Thin; gray; becoming scaly on old trunks with attractive cinnamon-red inner bark.

Wood: Little information published; hard; brown.

General: Native to most of the eastern U.S. (not Utah), where it often grows naturally as a small understory tree in the partial shade from larger overstory trees.  Never gets very large.  Shade tolerant.

Landscape Use: Very nice tree that can be difficult to get started, but does well and is quite adaptable once established.  Beautiful flowers that appear very early in the spring, nice leaves and bark, and small size all make it very worthwhile.  Best grown in full to partial shade under other trees or on the north or east sides of a building.  Sun-grown trees will have more compact, rounded canopys and may not do well in very hot, dry areas.  Zones 3-9.

Cultivars: 'Alba', 'Appalachian Red', 'Covery', 'Dwarf White', 'Flame', 'Forest Pansy', 'Northland Strain', 'Pinkbud', 'Royal White', 'Rubye Atkinson', 'Silver Cloud', 'Tennessee Pink', 'Traveller', 'Withers Pink Charm'.

Characteristics