A deciduous, wide-spreading, small tree 10 to 20 ft high in cultivation, but occasionally twice as high in some parts of its native habitat; young shoots soon becoming glabrous. Leaves opposite, broadly oval or ovate; 3 to 6 in. long, 11⁄2 to 3 in. wide; rounded or tapered at the base, the apex with a short, abrupt, slender point; dark green and with scattered down above; pale, rather glaucous and downy beneath; stalk 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. long. Flowers insignificant, 1⁄4 in. long, produced in a crowded head 1⁄2 in. across, green tipped with yellow. The real beauty of the plant is in the four bracts that form in autumn and enclose the flower-head during the winter, expanding in May. These bracts are inversely heart-shaped, the apex broad, rounded and notched, white, 11⁄2 to 2 in. long, the whole forming a showy, corolla-like involucre 3 to 4 in. across, commonly called the ‘flower’. Bot. Mag., t. 526.

Native of the eastern United States, where it is generally distributed from Massachusetts southwards; introduced in the early part of the eighteenth century, and cultivated by Thos. Fairchild in his nursery at Hoxton in 1730. There is also evidence of its having been grown by Miller at Chelsea in 1739. Although really a very hardy shrub so far as its capability of supporting extreme cold is concerned, as is shown by its perfect health and robustness in the neighbourhood of Boston, Mass., it has never become generally cultivated in Britain. Through its susceptibility to spring frosts and the indifferent ripening of its wood in autumn, it is rarely seen in good health. It thrives best in south-eastern and eastern England in positions not subject to early autumn and late spring frosts; the damper, less sunny climate of the south-west does not suit it. After a fine summer the leaves change to glorious shades of red and crimson.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

† cv. ‘Pluribracteata’. – Flowers with more numerous bracts than the standard four, and of differing size. This was described by Rehder in 1926 from a plant growing wild in North Carolina, of which propagations were distributed. There are trees of what is almost certainly the original clone at Guilford College, Greensboro, in the same state (The Garden (Journ. R.H.S.), Vol. 105 (1980), p. 78, and see further in the same volume, p. 341).

† cv. ‘Rainbow’. – Leaves margined with yellow.

f. rubra – Among the named clones, in addition to ‘Cherokee Chief’, are ‘Apple Blossom’ and ‘Spring Song’, the latter with bracts of a bright rosy red.

† cv. ‘Tricolor’. – Leaves with a marginal variegation of white flushed rose. The autumn colour is very striking.

In some British gardens C. florida flowers rarely, if at all. The remedy suggested by the late Sir George Jessel is to remove all side shoots and grow the plants as trees on a single trunk. He also emphasised that the plants must be given full sun (Int. Dendr. Soc. Year Book 1974, p. 59).