PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Celtis / Netleaf Hackberry (var. reticulata)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Celtis laevigata — the species. This variety isn’t separately illustrated.
Ulmaceae family

Netleaf Hackberry (var. reticulata) Celtis laevigata var. reticulata variety

Native

Netleaf Hackberry (var. reticulata) is a perennial tree native to the lower 48 states. It grows to 20 ft and blooms Apr in part shade – shade, with white fruit.

More about this plant

Celtis laevigata is a medium-sized tree native to North America. Common names include sugarberry, southern hackberry, or in the southern U.S. sugar hackberry or just hackberry. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
USDA PLANTS — Sun · Soil & moisture
USDA — SoilPH — Soil pH
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Fertility Requirement / Soil Adaptation — Fertility need · Adapts to
USDA — Temp-Min °F — Hardiness
Sun
Part shade – shade
Soil & moisture
Low moisture
Soil pH
5.9–8.3
Fertility need
Low
Adapts to
Coarse (sandy), Medium (loam)
Hardiness
USDA zone 3+
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Height, Mature — Height
Derived (allometric) — width = height × functional-class crown ratio fit on USDA Urban Tree DB · Tallo; method per Jucker et al. 2022, Pretzsch et al. 2015 — Mature width
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Planting Density (per acre) — Spacing
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Growth Rate / Spread / Growth Form / Lifespan / Active Growth Period / Seed Period — Spread · Growth rate · Growth form · Active growth
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) · USDA PLANTS — Foliage
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Fruit/Seed Color / Fruit Persistence — Fruit
Lifespan: USDA’s lifespan scale for trees: short = under ~100 years · moderate = 100–250 · long = over 250. Balsam fir and other short-lived conifers are genuinely short for a tree, not short like an annual.
Height
20 ft
Mature width
~ 17 ft wide DERIVED derived estimate — open-grown crown allometry (height × growth-form ratio); not a measurement
Spacing
21–30 ft apart from USDA planting density
Spread
None — clumping
Growth rate
Rapid
Growth form
Multiple stems
Lifespan
Perennial · moderate
Foliage
Broadleaf · medium texture
Active growth
Spring & summer
Fruit
White persists into winter
In the garden
Sources · In the garden
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Propagation Method / Commercial Availability — Propagate by · In the trade
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Germination (cold stratification) — Seed starting
USDA PLANTS — Seed Period — Seeds ripen
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Foliage Texture / Browse Palatability / Resprout — Deer browsing · Resprouts if cut
Propagate by
Seed, Cuttings, Bare root, Container
Seed starting
Needs cold stratification a cold-moist spell before it germinates
Seeds ripen
Spring – Autumn seed-collection / harvest window
In the trade
Routinely available
Deer browsing
Medium moderately palatable
Resprouts if cut
Yes regrows after top-kill
Sub-canopy / understory layer — Sits in the understory of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Apr — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — BloomPeriod
When to sow · for your area

Sow timing keys off your local last- and first-frost dates.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~43 caterpillar species

Celtis supports ~43 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a strong genus.

Recorded feeding on Celtis in North America, including:

Acronicta rubricoma · Ruddy Dagger Moth Adelpha fessonia · Band-Celled Sister Alsophila pometaria · Fall Cankerworm Anisota virginiensis · Pink-Striped Oakworm Asterocampa celtis · Hackberry Emperor Asterocampa clyton · Tawny Emperor
+ 8 more species →
Asterocampa idyja · brush-footed butterfly Asterocampa leilia · Empress Leilia Automeris cecrops · Cecrops Eyed Silkmoth Automeris io · giant silk moth Automeris louisiana · giant silk moth Automeris randa · Rand's Eyed Silk Moth Basilarchia arthemis · brush-footed butterfly Caria ino · Red-Bordered Metalmark
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Mature width Derived

For woody plants that have a height but no measured crown, we estimate width = height × a crown-to-height ratio fit for that plant’s form (conifers narrower than broadleaf trees, shrubs widest), calibrated on our measured open-grown crowns and capped at the largest one ever measured. A measured crown always wins; herbaceous plants get nothing (no anchor).

Honest limits: A coarse class-median estimate for garden-scale spacing, not a measurement; woody single/multi-stem forms only.

Allometric basis: Jucker et al. 2022 (Tallo); Pretzsch et al. 2015; McPherson et al. 2016 (USDA Urban Tree DB).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (27) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[18] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[19] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[20] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[21] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[23] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[25] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[26] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…