Photo: Matilda Smith, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Georgia Plume

Elliottia racemosa

Also called elliottia.

Upright plumes of white flowers in midsummer and bright red leaves in fall, on a rare small tree found wild only in Georgia.

RareShowy flowersFall color

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 10–16 ft
USDA zones: 6–9
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, dry uplands and rocky ground
Native range: Georgia and South Carolina See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Georgia plume is a small tree of the heath family found wild only in Georgia, which lists it as threatened. NatureServe ranks it imperiled worldwide, and its one known South Carolina site was destroyed. Wild stands are one or a few clones spread by root suckers, and they almost never set seed, so no wild seedling has ever been found. It flowers in midsummer like our sourwood, but its plumes stand upright and its petals are free, not joined into bells. Grow it as a specimen in a sunny, sandy bed, where the white plumes stand clear of the leaves in July.

Size, growth and what to expect

Georgia plume grows slowly, and our growth estimator treats it as slow, about a foot a year. Most trees stand 10 to 16 feet tall on a single trunk, and a few reach 35 feet. A plant sent to Kew in 1894 first flowered there in 1911.

Racemes 6 to 12 inches long stand upright at the branch tips from June to August, each with 40 to 80 white flowers whose narrow petals curl back. Bees, butterflies and ants visit them, and the leaves turn bright red in fall. The few capsules that form ripen in September and October and split to shed small winged seeds.

It grows wild only in the coastal plain and Piedmont of Georgia, mostly along the Altamaha, Ogeechee and Savannah rivers. Its home is sand ridges, evergreen hammocks and outcrops of sandstone and serpentine rock, in pine and oak woods that fire once kept open.

How to grow Georgia Plume

Georgia plume wants full sun or light shade. In deep shade it grows spindly and often takes cankers or fungus. Give it a deep, sandy, acid soil that drains fast, worked with peat or leaf mold. It does not last where the water table stands near the surface. Set trees 10 feet apart and keep them 15 feet from a wall. Keep it 15 feet from overhead wires, since a few trees reach 35 feet.

Saplings ship potted. It moves badly, so plant it in spring or fall without breaking up the root ball, in a hole wider than the pot and no deeper. Mulch with pine needles or leaves, kept off the trunk. It is hard to raise from seed. Much of its seed is empty, and good seed needs a cold spell. Keep it damp in the refrigerator for six weeks to three months, then sow it in a warm room or greenhouse. Seedlings come up in about three weeks and damp off easily. They grew on well only with a little soil from under a parent tree mixed into the pot.

Water through dry spells for the first two summers, and keep a mulch over the shallow roots. Cage a young tree where deer browse. It suckers from roots that are cut or damaged, so do not dig or hoe around it. It needs no pruning beyond dead wood.

Each flower carries both male and female parts. Sources disagree on whether a lone Georgia plume sets seed, since wild clones set almost none while lone garden trees have, so plant two from different parents for seed. It is prone to fungal diseases, most of all in shade.

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

Sources (7)

Plan the planting