Photo: Stephanie Harvey, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Buckwheat Tree

Cliftonia monophylla

Also called black titi, spring titi.

An evergreen of southern bogs whose fragrant spring flowers feed honeybees, followed by winged fruits shaped like buckwheat grains.

Honey treeEvergreenShowy flowersTolerates wet soilHedge or screenWildlife value

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 12–18 ft
USDA zones: 7–10
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Stream banks, swamps and wet flats
Native range: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Buckwheat tree is an evergreen shrub or small tree with thick, glossy leaves, the only species in its genus. On the coastal plain it forms dense stands of small trees, and it stays shrubby only where fire sweeps through often. Beekeepers value its flowers as a source of nectar and pollen for honey. New beekeepers can confuse it with white titi, a relative whose nectar or pollen can harm the bees' brood. Plant it as an evergreen hedge along a pond edge or a wet ditch, where bees work its flowers in early spring.

Size, growth and what to expect

Buckwheat tree grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes a crooked, many-stemmed small tree 12 to 18 feet tall and 6 to 10 feet wide. Some references give 15 to 30 feet, and a few trees reach 45.

Upright spikes of small, fragrant white or pink flowers open from March into May, from February in the Florida Panhandle. Bees work them, and deer browse the leaves. The dry fruits ripen in summer, each a quarter inch long with two to five wings. Their likeness to buckwheat grains gave the tree its name.

It grows wild only on the coastal plain from South Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. Its home is acid seepage bogs, the banks of blackwater streams and wet hollows in pine savannas.

How to grow Buckwheat Tree

Buckwheat tree wants full sun or part shade and an acid soil, sandy or peaty, that stays moist to wet. Once rooted it also takes a moderately dry bed. It will not stand lime, salt water or crowding by other trees and shrubs. Plant it 15 feet from a wall and 15 feet from overhead wires, since some trees pass 30 feet. Set trees 8 feet apart for a hedge.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them from fall until early spring, 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 stem. Many of the winged fruits hold no seed, so sow them thickly. Sow them outdoors in fall, barely covered, and keep the bed moist through winter.

Water weekly through the first two summers unless the ground stays wet. Keep a mulch of leaves or pine straw over the roots. Deer browse it, so cage young trees for two or three winters where they visit. It flowers at the tips of last year's shoots, so shape it right after bloom. Left untrimmed it spreads into a thicket, so cut back stems that stray past the bed.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female trees to pair. No serious pest or disease troubles it. Cold is its limit, so cover it when a hard freeze comes.

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

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