Photo: Charles T. Bryson, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

American Smoketree

Scientific name: Cotinus obovatus

Also called chittamwood, American smokebush.

Perhaps the best fall color of any native tree, on a small, drought-proof limestone specialist.

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Saplings ship bare-root, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

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Fall colorShowy flowersDrought tolerantRare

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 20–30 ft
USDA zones: 4–8
Growth rate: Slow
Flowers: May to June
Fruit: Dry fruit, June to September
First crop: 3 to 4 years
Mature spread: 30 ft
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Rocky ground
Native range: 8 states, north to Missouri and south and west to Texas
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Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas
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American smoketree is rare in the wild, scattered on limestone bluffs from Tennessee to Texas, but it is hardy, tough and spectacular in the garden. Airy pink flower plumes give the smoke effect in June; in October the rounded blue-green leaves turn orange, scarlet and purple all at once. A specimen for a dry sunny slope, in view of the house for its October color.

Size, growth and what to expect

American smoketree grows slowly, about a foot a year in youth on an average site by our growth estimator's model. It matures at 20 to 30 feet tall and about as wide, a short-trunked tree with an open crown and gray-brown bark that breaks into scaly plates with age. Individual trees have reached 221 years.

The tiny yellow-green flowers open in May and June in clusters 6 to 10 inches long. The smoke comes afterward, when hairs on the spent clusters turn smoky pink through summer. Most plants are male or female, though some carry both kinds of flower, and the males give the better smoke. Few fruits set, each a dry, one-seeded kernel about an eighth of an inch long. The wood once yielded a yellow dye and made fence posts and tool handles.

It grows wild on rocky limestone ground from Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Alabama west through the Ozarks to Oklahoma, with outlying stands on the Edwards Plateau of Texas.

How to grow American Smoketree

American smoketree asks for full sun and sharp drainage, and nothing else. A dry slope, a gravelly bank or thin soil over limestone suits it, and it is content in poor, alkaline ground. Wet or heavy soil is the one thing it will not stand. It is often multi-stemmed, so give it 15 feet from buildings and neighbors.

Plant dormant bare-root saplings in early spring. Dig a hole twice as wide as the roots and no deeper, set the root flare at grade, and backfill with the soil that came out. A two-inch mulch ring, kept off the stems, is enough. Seed has a hard coat and sprouts unevenly, so sow it in fall in a screened bed and wait a second spring.

Water weekly the first summer, then leave it alone; a smoketree in lean, dry soil colors better than a pampered one. Rabbits can chew young stems, so use a guard for two years. No fertilizer, and no pruning beyond removing dead wood.

Verticillium wilt is the one serious disease, so avoid ground where maples or other hosts have died of it. Fall color arrives in October.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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