Spicebush and American Beech: Tree & Shrub Plant Profile

Enjoy this highlight of two great natives we received from Mellow Marsh Farms in Siler City, NC: Spicebush Lindera benzoin and American Beech Fagus grandifolia.  We were able to source over 600 one-gallon sized native trees and shrubs from this great local grower for our Fall 2022 Season!

About our tree and shrub program:

Each year Painters is proud to offer a broad and beautiful selection of shrubs and trees. We ensure the highest quality and regional suitability by carefully curating our plants. And while we propagate many shrubs right here in our greenhouse, we source the larger, slower-growing shrubs and trees from local wholesale nurseries and native plant growers within a day's drive. Purchasing from regional growers, like Mellow March Farms, ensures the plants have been raised in a similar climate and plant health isn't affected from shipping long distances.​ Plus we love connecting with other fabulous local growers!

Lindera benzoin - Spicebush (photo NC State Extension)

Lindera benzoin - Spicebush

Deciduous shrub 8-15' tall/wide Part shade

Spicebush is a beautiful shrub that offers a lot in terms of wildlife food, landscape use, and an uncommon bloom time in your garden! It is naturally found in moist woodlands, think stream banks, bottomlands and rich cove forests. Their tiny yellow blooms can create a yellow-hazy appearance in the understory of woods. Their early bloom time (early March) is important to pollinators at a time when flowers are scarce this early in the season. All parts of this shrub have aromatic oils that give it a strong citrusy smell, especially when the leaves are crushed. Spicebush is dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female plants. The female plants create red berries that are favored by thrushes, upland game birds and songbirds, especially during fall migration. It can be challenging to tell if a spicebush plant is male or female if not purchased during bloom time or during berry production.

Spicebush Swallowtail Caterpillar (Photo: NC State Extension)

Spicebush (along with other plants in the laurel family) also supports larvae of the Palamedes and Spicebush Swallowtail butterflies - larva is best known for their "ferocious" eyespots! Traditionally, spicebush berries were dried and used as a spice to help season strong flavored meats (truly a unique and delicious flavor still regularly used in many cuisines), while the leaves were used for tea. Plant spicebush if you would like a plant for part shade, that's aromatic, blooms yellow in late winter, has yellow fall color, and supports wildlife.

American Beech, display of marcescent (Photo: Gardenia.net)

Fagus grandifolia - American Beech

Deciduous slow-moderate growing tree

50-70' tall, 40' wide

Full sun

The American Beech holds a special place in many hearts. Known for its wide-spreading canopy densely packed with delicate branching, beautiful golden bronze fall color, and smooth taut bark (which is sadly often vandalized). It is a wonderful shade tree and provides many benefits. While slow to mature, slow and steady wins the race as it can grow over 80 feet and live for 300+ years! The fruit, beechnuts, are formed when the tree ages 40+ years and provides food for birds and mammals such as chipmunks and squirrels. Early settlers believed the American Beech was a sign of fertile soil and would use the tree as an indicator of where to settle, plow and farm. One favorite trait is how the leaves hang on for so long before dropping - a term called "marcescent". The holding of leaves through winter protects the buds from drying in the winter cold and can deter browsing by deer. It also helps with wintertime tree identification when all leaves have dropped from neighboring woodland species! And the sound of leaves rustling in a cold winter breeze is always welcome.

American Beech fall color (Photo: Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center)

A passage from arborday.org:

There was a Beech tree on the old stage road between Blountville and Jonesborough, Tennessee that had an inscription carved into the trunk that read "D. Boone Cilled A Bar On Tree In Year 1760." (Killed a bear.) The tree fell in 1916 and had a girth of 28-1/2 feet. The Forest Service estimated the tree’s age to be 365 years, making it fully two centuries old before Daniel Boone inscribed on it.