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Plant · P-014
Smooth Alder
Alnus serrulata
A multi-stemmed, thicket-forming native shrub or small tree of wet ground - streambanks, swamp edges and floodplains - valued for stabilizing eroding banks with dense, spreading roots and for building soil nitrogen through root-nodule bacteria. Reddish female catkins and green-brown male catkins open before the leaves in late winter to early spring, followed by small woody cone-like fruits that persist and feed birds through winter. It suckers readily from the base into broad thickets and tolerates standing water, part shade to full shade, and acidic to neutral soil.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–9
- Soil
- Sand · Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 5–7
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 10–15 ft
- Mature spread
- 8–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 12–24 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
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Allegheny Chinquapin
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Sub-Canopy · USDA 5–9
Allegheny Serviceberry
Amelanchier laevis
Allegheny Serviceberry is a multi-trunked small tree grown mainly for its sweet, iron-and-copper-rich berries, up to 18 millimeters across,…
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American Hornbeam
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American Hornbeam is a small, iron-hard-wooded understory tree native to shaded, permanently moist stream margins across the eastern half of…
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Banana Plantain
Musa balbisiana
This is a wild, heavily seeded banana from eastern and south Asian forests, not a true plantain - most cooking plantains are hybrids that…
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Bay Laurel
Laurus nobilis
Dioecious and slow from seed with erratic germination so propagation is by half-ripe cuttings or air-layering. Stays where planted with no…
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Black Locust
Robinia pseudoacacia
Black Locust is a fast-growing nitrogen-fixing tree whose wood is so rot-resistant that a fence post cut from it can stand in the ground for…
Sub-Canopy · USDA 3–8
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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