Photo: Mike Peel, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Two-wing Silverbell

Halesia diptera

Also called two-winged silverbell, American snowdrop tree.

White bells in spring and two-winged fruit in fall, on a small tree of southern floodplains that takes shade and wet ground.

Showy flowersRareTolerates wet soilTolerates shadeWildlife value

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 15–30 ft
USDA zones: 4–9
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full, Part, Shade
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, stream banks, the forest understory, swamps and wet flats
Native range: 8 states, north to Arkansas, south to Florida and west to Texas
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Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas
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Two-wing silverbell is the silverbell of the southern coastal plain, a small tree or large shrub that often grows on several low trunks. Its fruit carries two broad wings where Carolina silverbell's has four, and that gives it its name. Its flowers make a better show than Carolina silverbell's. Few nurseries grow it. Give it the edge of a wet woodland or a spot beside a rain garden, where the bells hang at eye level in spring.

Size, growth and what to expect

Two-wing silverbell grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It makes a tree of 15 to 30 feet with a rounded crown 15 to 30 feet across. Wild trees reach 36 feet.

The flowers open from March to May, a week or two after Carolina silverbell's, in clusters of three to six. Each is a white bell three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter long, split almost to the base into four lobes. The dry fruit, an inch and a half to 2 inches long with two broad wings, ripens in late summer and fall, and some hangs on into winter. Squirrels eat the green fruit.

It grows wild on the coastal plain from South Carolina and north Florida west to Arkansas and Texas. Its home is wooded floodplains, ravines, swamps and hammocks. NatureServe lists it as possibly gone from Arkansas.

How to grow Two-wing Silverbell

Two-wing silverbell does best in part shade, in a moist, acid soil rich in leaf litter, and it takes a spell of wet ground. It flowers best in full sun where the soil stays moist. Shelter it from strong wind, plant it 15 feet from a wall, and set trees 20 feet apart. Keep it at least 15 feet from 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 root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and spread mulch over the whole root zone, clear of the trunk. Seed needs a warm spell and then a cold one. Sow the winged fruits outdoors in fall, and expect most seedlings the second spring.

Water deeply every week through the first two summers, and in dry spells after that, since it suffers in drought. Deer and rabbits browse young trees, so cage it for the first few years. Choose one trunk early for a single-stemmed tree, or let it grow as a clump.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female trees to pair. It has no serious pests or diseases. In an alkaline soil the leaves turn yellow between the veins, and watering will not fix that.

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

Sources (10)