Pygmy Fringetree

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates the growth of established plants, so our growth estimator treats it as a slow grower, like our white fringetree, about a foot a year. New sprouts from the roots grow 8 to 16 inches in their first season. In the wild it usually stays under 3 feet, but it can reach 12 feet or more, and its leathery leaves are 1 to 4 inches long.

Dense clusters of fragrant white flowers, each with four narrow petals about half an inch long, open in March and April. The olive-like fruit, about an inch long, ripens purplish brown in late summer and can hang on well into winter. Birds and small mammals take the fruit.

It grows wild in scrub, sandhill and dry hammocks on deep sand, where fire keeps the ground open, and it sprouts back from the roots after a burn. NatureServe ranks it imperiled, with about 4,000 wild plants, only half of them on protected land.

How to grow Pygmy Fringetree

Pygmy fringetree needs full sun. It takes the light shade of scattered pines, but not heavy shade. Give it a deep, sandy soil that drains fast, and keep it out of wet ground. It rides out long droughts, though plants on moister sand grow taller and flower more. Set plants 5 feet apart and keep them 5 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship potted. Plant them from late fall to early spring, in a hole wider than the pot and no deeper. Keep the root ball whole, set the crown at the soil line, and put the native soil back in. Its seed is hard to raise, with a complex dormancy that resists most treatments. Sow it as white fringetree is sown, outdoors in fall under a mouse screen. Seedlings are few, and they may take until the second spring.

Water weekly through the first summer, then only in long droughts. Deer browse the new leaves and shoots, so cage young plants. It needs no pruning, but keep taller shrubs from shading it, since plants in open ground carry the most flowers.

Most plants are male or female, and in the wild only about one plant in seven is female, so plant several seedlings if you want fruit. Honeybees and bee flies visit the flowers. The caterpillars of a moth chew the young leaves, and a weevil infests many of the fruits. Emerald ash borer attacks white fringetree, and it would likely kill this species too where the beetle spreads. Saplings and seed are shipped only in state and otherwise pickup only.