Symplocos tinctoria (L.) L'Hér.

Although it is a common enough understorey plant across a wide area of the south-eastern United States, the prominence of Symplocos tinctoria as a garden subject must rank among the lowest of any hardy tree. As Symplocos go, this is certainly a rather unassuming plant: its flowers, while fragrant, lack the pure white colouration of many species and cluster somewhat sparsely; the fruits are brown instead of bright blue; the leaves are neither deciduous nor luxuriantly evergreen, but tend to wither and fall little by little through winter, depending how cold it gets. Its distribution lies far to the north of other New World Symplocos, which are tropical species from the far south-west of Mexico into South America, while its nearest living relative may be S. wikstroemifolia from subtropical east Asia (Almeda & Fritsch 2009). The species was named as Hopea tinctoria by Carl Linnaeus in 1767 (in honour of John Hope, the first Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh), and was first recognised as a Symplocos by the French botanist Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle in 1791; two decades later, the name Hopea was recycled by William Roxburgh for an unrelated genus from tropical east Asia to New Guinea.

The specific epithet tinctoria means ‘used in dyeing’: a yellow pigment was derived from the bark and leaves, while the bitter, aromatic bark and roots were used as a tonic (Plants for a Future 2024). Fresh foliage, while not aromatic, can taste slightly sweet, with a distinctive apple-like flavour, and was used for fodder; there seems to be very little discussion about how such an apparently maladaptive strategy, which makes the tree particularly attractive to deer and other herbivores, should have evolved. The species does tend to grow singly rather than in groups, which in species-rich environments is a strategy to avoid browsing and insect damage. Symplocos tinctoria is the host plant for the King’s Hairstreak Butterfly Satyrium kingi (Wikipedia 2024).

The Sweetleaf was introduced to Britain in 1780 but, as a tree used to a long, hot and humid growing season, it repeatedly proved difficult to cultivate here (Bean 1981; Bean described it as ‘not hardy’ but this is an oversimplification, since wild plants can take frosts as hard as anywhere in Britain.) Bean also observed that high altitude provenances from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Carolina might be more suited to the climate of northwestern Europe; such populations, which are more pubescent and more nearly deciduous, have been described by Thomas Harbison as var. ashei, but few modern authorities accept either this variety or var. pygmaea, published by Merritt Fernald for a small-leaved bushy variant from south-eastern Virginia (Royal Botanic Gardens Kew 2024; Almeda & Fritsch 2009).

Although it is readily raised from seed and from softwood cuttings (Fern 2024), Symplocos tinctoria may be one of few North American trees to currently enjoy no presence in the nursery trade, either in its homeland or in Europe.