White Fringe Tree

Chionanthus virginicus

Size: 3 & 7 Gallon Availability

Tree
Max size: 20’ tall x 15’ wide
Average size: 15′ tall x 15′ wide

Usually Moist, Moist to Dry
Loam, Sand
Sun, Part Shade
No Salt Tolerance

Also known as: American Fringetree, Fringe Tree, Grancy Greybeard, Old Man’s Beard, Sweetheart Tree

This interesting tree blooms with frilly white flowers in the spring, and in the fall it’s leaves turn yellow. While blooming, it is fragrant and aromatic, and it makes an excellent drought-tolerant, slow-growing specimen tree. Its inedible fruits ripen in fall. If it needs to be pruned, you do so immediately after flowering. Larval host for rustic sphinx (Manduca rustica), waved sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa), and laurel sphinx (Sphinx kalmiae).

The Choctaw people boiled the bark and used the extract to bathe wounds. They also mashed the bark into a poultice for cuts/bruises (as did other tribes like the Koasati)