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Viburnum cassinoides
Also called Northern Wild Raisin, Swamp Haw, Wild Raisin
Witherod is a deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub from eastern North America, usually 1.5 to 1.8 m tall with a rounded crown. It is grown for its white spring flowers, its edible berry-like fruit, and its moisture-loving habit, and is best suited to cool temperate gardens.
Viburnum cassinoides, commonly known as northern wild raisin, blue haw, witherod viburnum, or swamp haw, is a deciduous shrub native to eastern North America in the viburnum family, Viburnaceae (also referred to as Adoxaceae). It is often synonymized with Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides.
Viburnum cassinoides has been recorded under its synonym Viburnum nudum var. cassinoides in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Through iNaturalist, this species has been observed in Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador (only on Newfoundland Island), as well as northern Michigan, northeastern Ohio, New York State and along the Appalachians down to northeastern Alabama and northern Georgia.
As mentioned, Viburnum cassinoides bears edible fruits that may be consumed raw or cooked and incorporated into various dishes (chiefly desserts). Many native American tribes such as the Abenaki and Algonquins made use of them. While a single fruit contains little flesh, its stony pit accounting for most of its volume, said flesh is said to be "sweet and well-flavoured". The plant's leaves also make for a pleasant tea substitute, and for this they are "steamed over boiling water, rolled between the fingers, allowed to stand overnight and then dried in an oven to be used as required."
Mapleleaf viburnum · Viburnum arboreum · Mexican arrowwood · Viburnum awabuki · Birchleaf Viburnum · Viburnum ×bodnantense · Bracted arrowwood · Manchurian Viburnum · Burkwood viburnum · Viburnum ×carlcephalum · Korean spice viburnum · Carolina Arrowwood
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Viburnum cassinoides 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.
