Photo: Tournasol7, CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Bracted Arrowwood

Viburnum bracteatum

Also called limerock arrowwood, bracted viburnum, southeastern viburnum.

A rare arrowwood of southern limestone bluffs, with flat clusters of white flowers in spring and oval blue-black fruit for birds.

RareShowy flowersWildlife valueDrought tolerant

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 6–10 ft
USDA zones: 6–8
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Rocky ground, rich moist slopes, the forest understory and stream banks
Native range: Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee See what is native in your state

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Bracted arrowwood is a viburnum of limestone bluffs and rocky wooded slopes in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. It is named for the narrow green bracts at the base of its flower clusters. It is close to our arrowwood viburnum, but it keeps tiny leaflike flaps at the base of each leaf stalk all season and bears larger, oval fruit. Its tight gray bark sets it apart from our softleaf arrowwood, whose bark peels. Quarrying has destroyed an Alabama stand and most of the first-known Georgia site. Georgia lists it as endangered and Tennessee as a species of special concern. Grow it in a sunny shrub border or at a woodland edge, where bees work the flowers and birds take the fruit.

Size, growth and what to expect

Bracted arrowwood grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes a rounded shrub 6 to 10 feet tall and as wide, its stems arching with age. It spreads by short underground stems and by sprouts from the root crown, forming a colony.

Flat clusters about 2 inches across, of small white flowers with an unpleasant smell, open from mid-April to mid-May. They peak after the other viburnums that share its bluffs. The fruit ripens blue-black from July into October, an oval drupe about 0.4 inch long, and birds eat it.

It grows wild on limestone bluffs above the Coosa River and on rocky slopes of the Cumberland Plateau, in rich woods under oaks, hickories and elms. The three Georgia stands rarely flower or set fruit. NatureServe ranks it critically imperiled to imperiled.

How to grow Bracted Arrowwood

Bracted arrowwood flowers best in full sun and also grows in part shade, as it does in open woods over limestone. It wants a well-drained clay or sandy loam, acid to neutral, moist but dry at times. It does not stand wet soil. It tolerates drought and poor soil. Plant it 5 feet from a wall and set plants 6 feet apart. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch ring clear of the stems. It is sown as northern viburnums are. Sow cleaned seed outdoors half an inch deep, under wire against mice, in fall or the next spring. Seedlings come up the second spring after you collect the seed.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short, and keep a mulch over the roots. It is rated resistant to deer and rabbits. It flowers on old wood, so prune right after bloom, and only as needed.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, and insects carry the pollen. Its close relative, our arrowwood viburnum, needs pollen from another plant to set fruit, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents. The viburnum leaf beetle, which can strip a related arrowwood by midsummer, may become a threat if it spreads south.

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

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