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.

An upright, multi-stemmed, rhizomatous deciduous shrub of the western U.S. and Canada, named for its showy, fragrant yellow-to-orange spring flowers. Glossy lobed leaves turn reddish-purple in fall, and the spring bloom gives way to edible black currants by mid to late summer. Tough and adaptable — it tolerates dry to seasonally flooded soils, poor and clay soils, drought, and erosion, and the flowers and fruit feed hummingbirds, butterflies, and birds.

A rounded, multi-stemmed deciduous shrub native across eastern and central North America, grown for its edible nuts and its season-opening catkins. Showy 2-3 inch yellowish-brown male catkins dangle from bare branches in early spring before the ovate, double-toothed leaves emerge; small egg-shaped edible nuts ripen inside leafy husks by mid- to late summer. Easygoing in average soil and tolerant of clay and black walnut, it suckers into thickets that screen and shelter wildlife.

A small native tree with white spring flowers, edible summer berries, and copper to red fall color.