We crave the bright colors of spring after a long, grey winter, and native plants are always happy to oblige! One of our hands-down favorite shrubs at the SBG is the native northern spicebush (Lindera benzoin). Unlike the more showy but non-native forsythia, spicebush offers beauty and wildlife value beyond its yellow flowers. In early spring, tiny, fragrant, long-blooming flowers line the branches. It’s a dioecious plant–meaning that each plant has either all-male (staminate) or all-female (pistillate) flowers. On female plants, flowers give way to bright red berries later in summer, a high quality food for migrating birds. But how can you tell which is which?
When spicebush is in bloom, a close look at one of these blossoms will reveal all! Male flowers are larger, and each stamen has two anthers that emerge from the end of the filament. Female flowers are noticeably smaller, with white spots (stigma) at the end of the pistil.
Either way, spicebush is a fantastic shrub that no pollinator habitat should be without!
