The Main Plant entry for Smoketrees (Cotinus coggygria)

This Common Smoketree or Smokebush is native from southern Europe to central China. The leaves are 1.5 to 3.5 inches long and are rounded, bluish-green and then get some fall color of yellow to red to purple, but often not brilliant. The small 5-petal yellowish flowers are inconspicuous, but the fine plant hairs around the flower-fruit clusters make a pink smoke in June that may last pink into July, then turns tan in color. Cool summers are best for longer pink hair display. The fruit is a tiny kidney-shaped drupe (berry-like). The twigs are purplish-brown, very stout, and emit a sweet kind of fragrance when crushed. There is a good number of different cultivars with red-purple foliage the whole growing season that bear purple smoke hairs. I remember seeing a few of the straight species in the Chicago area in the 1980's in average yards, but there were many more of the purple foliaged cultivars as 'Royal Purple' and 'Nordine.' I don't know of the straight species being planted anymore after the 1980's in the Midwest or Eastern USA. I found a really big old specimen of the mother species in a front yard in southeast PA that must have been planted in the 1970's when this woody plant was new on the market.

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Honey bees get nectar from this plant.

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