Rhus virens
Evergreen sumac is a shrub or small tree, from 6-10 ft. in height with spreading branches. Its shiny, evergreen, pinnate foliage is tinged with pink in early spring and maroon after frost. Leaves are alternate, 2-5 1/2 inches long, with 5-9 fleshy leaflets on stiff stems. The 5-petaled, inconspicuous, greenish or white flowers grow in […]
Pistacia mexicana
Pistacia mexicana is a large, airy, rounded shrub or multi-trunked small tree, 12-20 ft. tall. Its glossy foliage, reddish in spring, dark-green later, is pinnately compound. Clusters of small, white flowers are followed by clusters of red, nut-like drupes on females. These become almost black on drying.
Sapindus saponaria var. drummondii
Soapberry is a single-stemmed, low-branched, round-crowned tree, growing 10-50 ft. tall, depending on habitat. Gray, sculpted bark is distinctive in the dormant season. Leaves up to 18 inches long with a central axis and as many as 24 paired leaflets, usually fewer, and often no terminal leaflet. Leaflets unsymmetric with the broader part of the […]
Viburnum rufidulum
This viburnum is a shrub or tree, usually growing to 18 ft. but sometimes taller with bark separating into dark, rectangular plates. Twigs reddish brown with a thin light gray coating. Leaves in pairs, often on short spurs, the petioles covered with rust colored, branched hairs visible under a l0x hand lens; blades up to […]
Yucca thompsoniana
Thompson’s yucca grows 6-12 feet high, treelike, with a trunk 5-8 inches in diameter. The trunk is usually unbranched. The leaves are narrow and stiff and grow in a radiating mass near the top; they are 8-24 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide in the middle. They gradually widen from the base to the […]
Muhlenbergia lindheimeri
Muhlenbergia lindheimeri is a 2-5 ft. perennial bunchgrass with fine foliage and a fountain-like form. Seedheads are silvery.Native from the Edwards Plateau of central Texas south to northern Mexico, Big muhly or Lindheimer’s muhly has become increasingly popular since the 1980s as an elegant, large-scale specimen grass, large enough for screening. It can be a […]
Melica nitens
Small florets, 2 or 3 in number, but 2 most common in the southern parts of its range, which dangle in loose panicles on the slender, arching stems of this 3-5 ft. grass. Leaf blades usually flattened. Spikelets longer than they are wide.A very graceful-looking, rhizomatous, cool-season grass usually found in part-shade in savannahs and […]
Lonicera albiflora
Usually a 4 ft. deciduous shrub, the long, graceful, sometimes twining branches of white honeysuckle can reach 10 ft. in height. Leaves paired, broadly oval, up to 2 3/4 inches long by 1 3/4 inches wide but usually half these dimensions, rounded at the tip, with a minute point, smooth margins, and rounded or tapered […]
Magnolia grandiflora
One of the most beautiful native trees, evergreen with straight trunk, conical crown, and very fragrant, very large, white flowers. The pyramidal southern magnolia does not get extremely large in most of its range. It is usually 50 ft. tall, rarely growing to 100 ft. They have a dense growth of smooth, leathery evergreen leaves […]
Ilex vomitoria
Native from southern Virginia south to Florida and west to southeast Oklahoma and central Texas, Yaupon is a picturesque, upright, single- or multi-trunked shrub or small tree, growing 12-45 ft high but usually no higher than 25 ft. Female plants produce prodigious amounts of bright red, persistent berries. The leaves are dark green and small, […]