Fothergilla: Plant of the Day This Early May

Petals? Who needs them. Just wave your stamens in the air like you don't care, I guess, is Fothergilla's motto. Aesthetically, this North American native's flowers are all about the male organs. Perhaps this is fitting, as the new lesson I learned about Fothergilla this spring is that the genus name honors a man named Dr John Fothergill (1712–1780), an English Quaker physician whose 18th-century Essex garden garden included one of the earliest, most extensive collections of North American native plants. (Essentially this plant is named after an old timey plant geek!)

Just like some other native members of the witch-hazel family (Hamamelidaceae) worth knowing, come autumn and its leaves will be the stars of the show.