Taxonomic Classification:
Aesculus pavia
Common Name:
Red buckeye or Firecracker plant
Description:
A large deciduous shrub, Aesculus pavia reaches a height of 10 to 20 feet. It’s leaves are opposite, and are usually composed of five elliptical serrated leaflets, each 4-6 inches long. It bears 4-7 inch long clusters of red tubular flowers in the spring. Smooth, light brown, globular (1-2” diameter) seed capsules encase 1-3 shiny seeds called buckeyes that ripen in the fall. Seeds are poisonous and are avoided by most wildlife. Blooms April to May.
Taxonomic Classification:
Aronia arbutifolia
Common Name:
Red chokeberry
Description:
Aronia arbutifolia (Photinia pyrifolia), grows to 2–4m tall, rarely up to 6 m. Leaves are simple, alternate, 5–8 cm wide. The flowers are white or pale pink, 1 cm wide, with glandular sepals (they turn a deep red color in the fall). The fruit is red, 4–10 mm wide, persisting into winter. PHENOLOGY: March-May and September-November. HABITAT: Bogs, fens, seeps, seepage swamps, tidal swamps, acidic alluvial swamps and mesic upland forests.
Taxonomic Classification:
Bignonia capreolata
Common Name:
Crossvine
Description:
Woody vines to 20m, climbing by tendrils, glabrous; transverse section of branch shows a cross. Leaves compound, of 2 leaflets and branched tendril; leaflets 3-17 x 1-6cm, ovate/oblong/elliptic, entire, often semievergreen, glabrous; leaf axils often with pairs of accessory leaves resembling stipules. Corollas 4-6cm, yellow or mostly orange to reddish outside, slightly paler within; stamens 4, shorter than the corolla, paired, often with rudiment of a 5th. PHENOLOGY: April to May and July to August. HABITAT: Alluvial swamps and floodplain forests.
Taxonomic Classification:
Calycanthus floridus
Common Name:
Carolina Allspice
Description:
A 6-12 ft., deciduous perennial shrub. Its erect, multiple stems create a rounded outline. Terminal blossoms are 2-5cm wide, solitary and dark red with numerous overlapping, strap-like petals. Flower are often quite fragrant. Leaves are elliptic to oblong, aromatic, leathery, dark-green, opposite, simple. PHENOLOGY: March-June; July-September. HABITAT: Mesic slope forests and bottom-lands, fencerows and roadsides. Adapts to many soils, and grows taller in shaded places.
Taxonomic Classification:
Cercis Canadensis
Common Name:
Red bud
Description:
Redbud is a 4-10 meter tall deciduous perennial tree with short trunk, rounded crown of spreading branches, thin bark with shallow grooves and dark brown scaly ridges. Fascicles of 3-9 flowers on trunk and branches of preceding years growth, appearing before the leaves. Smooth, heart-shaped, deciduous foliage; leaves 6-11 x 7-12cm, broadly cordate, obstuse to short-acuminate, palmately veined. Legumes 5-9 x 0.8-1.6cm, subsessile to stipitate, pointed at both ends, conspicuously veined; wings 1-2mm wide along the uppr suture. PHENOLOGY: March-May; June-November. HABITAT: Moist, fertile, well-drained soils in partial or full shade.
Taxonomic Classification:
Ilex verticillata
Common Name:
Winterberry
Description:
Shrub to 8 m, rarely treelike. Twigs glabrous or pubescent. Leaves 2-10 x 1.5-5 cm, lanceolate to round-obovate or lance-oblong to elliptic, cuneate to somewhat rounded at the base, usually acuminate, generally broadest above the middle, serrate or crenate-serrate, with salient or appressed teeth, coriaceous, thick, dull to lustrous above, appressed-pilose or downy beneath (at least on main vein) or prominently rugose and glabrous to pubescent beneath, deciduous. Staminate inflorescences fascicles or cymes of 2-25 flowers; pistillate flowers solitary or clustered so as to appear verticillate; pedicels 1-5 mm; staminate flowers 4-6 merous; pistillate flowers 5-8 merous. Drupes 5-7 mm, globose, bright red to yellow; pyrenes 3-4 mm, 5-8 per drupe, smooth on the back. PHENOLOGY: April-May; September-November. HABITAT: Alluvial swamps, seepage swamps, bogs, ponds, and depression swamps; occasionally in mesic upland forests.
Taxonomic Classification:
Kalmia latifolia
Common Name:
Mountain Laurel
Description:
Shrub to small tree, 2-10 m, often forming dense thickets. Branches thick. Leaves 5-11 x 1.5-4 cm, elliptic to lanceolate, acute at both ends, glabrate with age, all or mostly alternate. Inflorescences terminal panicles; pedicels and calyxes glabrous or stipitate-glandular and often floccose; corollas 1.5-2.5 cm broad, pink to white, usually with purple spots at anther pockets. Capsules 407 mm wide, broader than long, stipitate-glandular. PHENOLOGY: April-June; September-October. HABITAT: Mesic to dry, acidic forests, woodlands, and shrub balds, often in sandy, rocky, or organic-rich soils; less typically in bogs and seepage wetlands.
Taxonomic Classification:
Rhododendron carolinianum
Common Name:
Carolina rhododendron
Description
Small perennial evergreen shrub, 3-6 ft. tall. Broad, funnel-shaped flowers occur in large, terminal clusters. Flowers range from white to pale bluish-pink and appear after the leaves. PHENOLOGY: Bloom in May. HABITAT: Prefers shade; well drained, acidic soils.
Taxonomic Classification:
Rhododendron viscosum
Common Name:
Swamp Azalea
Description:
Shrub 0.2-5 m, much branched. Branchlets typically hairy. Leaves 3-7 cm, elliptic-oblong to oblong-oblanceolate, glabrous except for the strigose bristles on the midrib, deciduous. Pedicels and calyxes glandular-ciliate; corollas tubular, white to, rarely, pink; tubes 1.5-3 cm. Capsules 0.7-2 cm, strigose or glandular. PHENOLOGY: May-July; July-October. HABITAT: Acidic seepage swamps, nonriverine swamps, tidal swamps, acidic alluvial swamps, bogs, fens, depression ponds, pocosins, and wet flatwoods.