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Fabaceae family

Texas Redbud (var. texensis) Cercis canadensis var. texensis variety

Native

Texas Redbud (var. texensis) is a perennial tree native to the lower 48 states. It grows to 12 ft and blooms Mar in full sun, with brown fruit.

More about this plant

Cercis canadensis, the eastern redbud, is a large deciduous shrub or small tree, native to eastern North America from southern Michigan south to central Mexico, west to New Mexico, but able to thrive as far west as California and as far north as southern Ontario. It is the state tree of Oklahoma and the official city tree of Huntington Beach. The prevalence of the so-called "Columbus strain" has seen the residents of Columbus, Wisconsin, embrace the plant in their city's identity. Known as the "Redbud City," the town hosts "Redbud Day" annually the Saturday before Mother's Day, organizing a variety of themed events to recognize the tree. 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
Full sun
Soil & moisture
Low moisture
Soil pH
6–8
Fertility need
Low
Adapts to
Medium (loam), Fine (clay)
Hardiness
USDA zone 7+
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
USDA PLANTS — FoliageTexture — 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
12 ft
Mature width
~ 10 ft wide DERIVED derived estimate — open-grown crown allometry (height × growth-form ratio); not a measurement
Spacing
6–21 ft apart from USDA planting density
Spread
Slow
Growth rate
Rapid
Growth form
Multiple stems
Lifespan
Perennial · short-lived
Foliage
fine texture
Active growth
Spring
Fruit
Brown 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
Summer – Autumn seed-collection / harvest window
In the trade
Routinely available
Deer browsing
Medium moderately palatable
Resprouts if cut
Yes regrows after top-kill
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub 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 · Mar — 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 ~19 caterpillar species

Cercis supports ~19 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 moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Cercis in North America, including:

Acronicta americana · American Dagger Moth Amphipyra pyramidoides · Copper Underwing Amphipyra tragopoginis · Mouse Moth Archips argyrospila · Fruit-Tree Leafroller Moth Automeris cecrops · Cecrops Eyed Silkmoth Automeris io · giant silk moth
+ 8 more species →
Automeris louisiana · giant silk moth Automeris zephyria · Zephyr Eyed Silkmoth Desmia funeralis · Grape Leaffolder Fascista cercerisella · Redbud Leaffolder Hyphantria cunea · tiger moth Incisalia henrici · gossamer-winged butterfly Lophocampa maculata · Spotted Tussock Moth Malacosoma americana · Eastern Tent Caterpillar Moth
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 (1) Methods & honest limits
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 (24) 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
[20] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[21] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[23] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[24] 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).

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