Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Fool's Huckleberry

Rhododendron menziesii

Also called Pacific Menziesia, False Azalea, Mock Azalea, Rusty Leaf Menziesia, Smooth Menziesia, Rusty Menziesia

Fool's Huckleberry
Photo: Walter Siegmund (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0

Fool's huckleberry is a deciduous woodland shrub from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, valued for its pink to yellow hanging bell-shaped flowers in early summer. It thrives in cool, moist, shaded conditions similar to the mountain forest understory where it grows.

Family
Ericaceae (Heather family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Shade
Water
Keep the soil consistently moist but not waterlogged, especially in warm weather.
Soil
Moist, humus-rich, acidic, well-drained woodland soil.
Temperature
Cool conditions suit it best; hardy to roughly -30 °C, and it does poorly in hot, dry summers.
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Toxic: The leaves, flowers and nectar of plants in the Rhododendron genus contain grayanotoxins, which can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness and low blood pressure if eaten.. Toxic to cats and dogs (ASPCA).
Native range
Alsaka to W. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate

About

Rhododendron menziesii, also classified as Menziesia ferruginea, is a species of flowering plant in the heath family Ericaceae, known by several common names, including rusty menziesia, false huckleberry, fool's huckleberry and mock azalea.

Where it grows

The shrub is native to northwestern North America from Alaska through the Pacific Northwest to northwestern California and Wyoming.

Other Rhododendron plants

Rhododendron aberconwayi · Sagan Dalya · Rhododendron adenogynum · Rhododendron adenosum · Rhododendron aganniphum · Cascade azalea · Rhododendron albrechtii · Rhododendron album · Rhododendron alutaceum · Rhododendron annae · Rhododendron anthopogon · Rhododendron araiophyllum

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhododendron menziesii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…