Viburnum Species, Downy Arrowwood, Rafinesque Viburnum

A great native shrub - 3 season interest with flowers, berries, and fall color that can be bright red depending on the weather. It's sha...Read Morede-tolerant and does well on alkaline soils such as rocky limestone slopes.

This is one of several Arrowwood Viburnum species that are listed as different species, (the Smooth, Downy, Kentucky, and Bracted), but I...Read More would list them as different natural varieties, as they are not very different from each other; and can be hard to tell apart. Actually, the leaves of the Downy species do have a different appearance of being less rounded. The Southern or Smooth Arrowwood, V. dentatum, is the one that is commonly sold by conventional nurseries with a good number of cultivars. This Downy Arrowwood has rough hair under the leaf and some rough hair on the twigs. (There is a V. rafinesquianum affine, a Less Downy Viburnum, that just has some hair on the main leaf veins beneath and some on the leaf petiole.) Its native range is MN, WI, IA, northern IL, MI, southeast Ontario, and areas and spots in NY, PA, NJ, IN, OH, along western New England, down the Appalachians, and around the Ozarks. It makes as good a landscape large shrub as the Smooth Arrowwood, being basically neat and clean with nice white flower clusters, purple-black fruit loved by birds, and usually good fall color. It is the native species for much of the Northeast and northern Midwest.