Plants with a place in the medicine chest of history. The medicinal mavens gather the herbs, shrubs, and trees that people have turned to for healing and wellbeing across centuries and cultures, grown here for their beauty, their stories, and their long human use.
Leatherleaf is the quiet constant of the northern bog. Chamaedaphne calyculata, the only species in the genus, is a low, thicket-forming evergreen of the heath family that ranges right around the cold northern world, from the peatlands of North America east to the bogs of Finland and Japan, and southward in this country to the pocosins and acid bogs of the coastal plain, as far as South Carolina. Across that vast range, leatherleaf forms the dense, spreading colonies that hold a bog together and shelter the wildlife within.
The native fringetree is one of the great small trees of the southern spring. Chionanthus virginicus, a deciduous large shrub or small tree, often multi-stemmed, hangs the whole canopy with fleecy, drooping panicles of narrow white petals in spring, soft as torn paper and lightly fragrant, a look that earned the old country names old man's beard and grancy graybeard. On female plants the flowers give way to clusters of raisin-sized, deep blue-purple fruits that birds take quickly.
Native to the open prairies and meadows of North America, Coreopsis lanceolata, the lanceleaf coreopsis, has long been admired for bright, golden-yellow blooms and an easy, hardy nature. This perennial wildflower has been a staple of North American landscapes for a very long time, growing across a wide range of climates and soils, from sandy coastal ground to the rich prairies of the Midwest.
The botanical name reads like a compliment: Diospyros joins the Greek dios, divine, to pyros, grain, so the genus translates roughly as "fruit of the gods," a lofty title for a tree that drops sweet, homely orange fruit onto the forest floor each autumn. The common name travels the other direction, plain and American, from the Powhatan word putchamin for a dried fruit, a reminder that Native peoples were drying persimmons into cakes long before the botanists arrived.
Hardiness
Zones 4–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
55–60 ft.
Spread
30–35 ft.
Bloom
Yellow
Plant type
Tree
Traditional use
digestive health, topical applications, general wellness
This is the wild strawberry of eastern North America, Fragaria virginiana, the modest little groundcover that carpets sunny woodland edges, old fields, and roadside banks across the continent. Trifoliate, serrated leaves rise in low tufts, and slender runners reach out to root new plantlets at their tips, so that a single crown becomes a colony in a season or two.
In the dappled understory of the Eastern woods, Geranium maculatum has made a home for as long as the forests have stood. Known to generations as wild geranium or cranesbill, this native perennial forms a tidy clump of softly lobed leaves and lifts loose sprays of rose-purple, five-petaled flowers, as much a part of the old spring landscape as dogwood and trillium.
Firebush earns the name honestly. From late spring until the first frost, the arching branch tips carry tight clusters of slender tubular flowers in hot orange-red, each one a narrow torch held out for the hummingbirds and butterflies that work the plant from morning to dusk. The foliage plays along: new leaves and stems flush bronze to burgundy, the veins stained red, so that even between flushes of bloom the whole shrub reads warm. Few plants pull in as much winged traffic through the heat of a southern summer.
Pineland hibiscus is the wilder, pricklier cousin among the native mallows, and all the more charming for a slightly untamed look. Through the summer the plant opens broad flowers several inches across in soft creamy yellow, each centered on a deep maroon eye, the classic hibiscus form scaled down and set on a low, spreading, bristly frame. The deeply lobed leaves are rough to the touch and the stems carry fine prickles, so the whole plant reads as a hardy native of open, sunny ground rather than a pampered border hybrid.
'Annabelle' is a wild American shrub with a hometown. Around 1910 two sisters, Harriet and Amy Kirkpatrick, spotted an unusually full-flowered smooth hydrangea in the woods of Union County, Illinois, dug the plant, and grew it in their garden in the town of Anna. For half a century the shrub passed hand to hand around southern Illinois as a nameless local treasure, until the University of Illinois plantsman Dr. Joseph C. McDaniel traced the trail back to Anna in the 1960s, selected the plant, and released it for sale in 1962. The name 'Annabelle' honors both the town and the Kirkpatrick belles who found the shrub: Anna plus belle.
Hypericum prolificum lives up to the name, prolific, disappearing each summer under a heavy crop of bright yellow flowers, each three-quarters of an inch to an inch across and stuffed with a golden brush of stamens. The shrub is dense and rounded, with arching branches, narrow shiny leaves, and reddish, exfoliating bark that peels to show paler layers once the foliage thins.
Yaupon is the fine-textured evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The species wears small, glossy, oval leaves on gray twigs, tolerates salt, drought, and hard shearing, and has long anchored Southern gardens as hedge, screen, and topiary. 'Folsom's Weeping' breaks from that upright habit entirely: a tall female selection whose branches spill downward in long, pendulous curtains, so that a single mature plant reads as a green fountain rather than a shrub.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
15–18 ft.
Spread
6–10 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Adaptable almost to a fault, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and content in sun or shade, the species takes shearing as neatly as boxwood and has served Southern gardens for generations as hedge, screen, and clipped structure. 'Hoskins Shadow' is a standout among the named forms: a dense, fast-growing shrub or small tree, 15 to 20 feet in time, chosen for unusually large, dark green foliage and, above all, for cold hardiness well beyond the ordinary yaupon.
Hardiness
Zones 6–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
15–20 ft.
Spread
8–10 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia south to Texas, with outliers into Cuba and the Yucatan, and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The wild plant is prized for fine, dense foliage that shears like boxwood, so a big-leaved yaupon comes as a small surprise. 'Lowrey's Big Leaf' is exactly that: an upright, evergreen selection whose leaves run conspicuously larger and glossier than the norm, giving the whole shrub a bolder, greener texture while keeping all the toughness of the species.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
10–20 ft.
Spread
8–12 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, the species shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges and clipped structure, the females carrying translucent scarlet berries into winter. 'Yawkey' rewrites that last detail in a rarer color: this is a yellow-berried yaupon, hung each winter with soft amber-gold fruit instead of red, on an upright, somewhat open and spreading frame.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
8–12 ft.
Spread
6–10 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern coastal plain, native from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Tough, salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and endlessly shearable, the species has anchored Southern gardens for generations. 'Gold Top' rings a color change on the familiar green: each spring the new growth flushes a bright yellow-green, gilding the tips of a compact, dense female shrub, and in fall the same plant hangs the usual red yaupon berries when a male grows nearby.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
8–10 ft.
Spread
6–8 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the southeastern United States, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. Salt tolerant, drought tolerant, and willing in sun or shade, the species shears as cleanly as boxwood and has long been a Southern mainstay for hedges, screens, and topiary. This is the straight male form: no berries, since male hollies never fruit, but a dense, dependable evergreen and the pollen source that every berried female yaupon needs.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
10–20 ft.
Spread
8–12 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Yaupon is the small-leaved evergreen holly of the Southeast, native along the coastal plain from Virginia to Texas and a member of the holly family, Aquifoliaceae. The wild plant is a broad, twiggy shrub, so a yaupon that grows straight up like a green column is a genuine oddity. 'Will Fleming' is exactly that: a male selection with a strict fastigiate habit, reaching twelve to fifteen feet tall on a base only two or three feet wide, a living exclamation mark carrying the fine yaupon leaf all the way up.
Hardiness
Zones 7–10
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
12–15 ft.
Spread
2–3 ft.
Bloom
White
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
general wellness, mental & emotional well-being, detoxification & cleansing
Juniperus communis, the common juniper, is the most widespread conifer in the world, a circumboreal shrub of northern latitudes and high elevations, and the source of the aromatic berries that flavor gin. The variety depressa is the low, ground-hugging North American form, a prostrate mat of prickly, blue-green needles. 'Hitchcock' is a Woodlanders selection of that low form, and hangs on one of the more remarkable botanical stories in the Southeast.
Hardiness
Zones 3–8
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
8–12 in.
Spread
4–6 ft.
Bloom
Blue
Plant type
Conifer
Traditional use
detoxification & cleansing, digestive health, topical applications, general wellness
Juniperus virginiana, the eastern red cedar, is a tough, aromatic native conifer of eastern North America, found from Canada to the Gulf and famous for fragrant, moth-repelling wood and a pioneering habit on poor, dry, and abandoned ground. 'Lawrenceville' is a narrow, upright selection, a slender column of dense, dark evergreen foliage with short branches held close to the trunk, ideal where vertical form is wanted in a small footprint.
Hardiness
Zones 3–9
Light
Full Sun
Height
15–25 ft.
Spread
4–8 ft.
Bloom
Blue
Plant type
Conifer
Traditional use
respiratory support, topical applications, general wellness
Liatris spicata, the blazing star or gayfeather, sends up rockets of feathery purple in the heart of summer, one of the great vertical accents of the North American prairie. The species is native to the moist meadows, prairies, and wet savannas of eastern North America, where the flower spikes once rose in their thousands among the tall grasses. Set against those horizontal sweeps of grass, the erect, bottlebrush spikes give any planting a jolt of structure and color.
Hardiness
Zones 3–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade
Height
2–4 ft.
Spread
1–2 ft.
Bloom
Purple
Plant type
Perennial
Traditional use
immune support, respiratory support, detoxification & cleansing, digestive health
