A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5-12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh — they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

A native evergreen shrub of the eastern North American Appalachian + Piedmont understory producing extraordinary spring clusters of pink-to-white cup-shaped flowers with a unique spring-loaded pollination mechanism (anthers held under tension, triggered by visiting pollinators). State flower of Connecticut + Pennsylvania. Critically: NC State explicitly flags Kalmia as having HIGH-SEVERITY poison characteristics — all plant parts toxic to humans, dogs, cats, horses, and livestock; even honey from mountain-laurel nectar can poison humans ("mad honey").

A native deciduous holly of eastern North America grown for brilliant red berries that persist on bare stems through fall and winter — feeds songbirds and small mammals when little else is producing. Dioecious: one male pollinizer is required within 50 feet for every 10-20 female plants.

A tall native perennial wildflower of moist meadows and woodland edges across eastern North America, producing large domed clusters of vanilla-scented pink-purple flowers in late summer — among the most reliable late-season nectar sources for monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, and native bees. Formerly classified as Eupatorium purpureum.

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50-80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes — each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract — that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries — an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15-30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.