Hamamelis virginiana, known as witch-hazel, common witch-hazel, American witch-hazel and beadwood,[1] is a species of flowering shrub native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, and south to central Florida to eastern Texas.[2]
Description
It is a small, deciduous tree or shrub growing up to 6 m (rarely to 10 m) tall, often with a dense cluster of stems from its base. The bark is light brown, smooth, scaly, inner bark reddish purple. The branchlets are pubescent at first, later smooth, light orange brown, marked with occasional white dots, finally dark or reddish brown. The foliage buds are acute, slightly falcate, downy, light brown. The leaves are oval, 3.7–16.7 cm (1+7⁄16–6+9⁄16 in) long and 2.5–13 cm (1–5+1⁄8 in) broad, oblique at the base, acute or rounded at the apex, with a wavy-toothed or shallowly lobed margin, and a short, stout petiole 6–15 mm (0.24–0.59 in) long; the midrib is more or less hairy, stout, with six to seven pairs of primary veins. The young leaves open involute, covered with stellate rusty down; when full grown, they are dark green above, and paler beneath. In fall, they turn yellow with rusty spots. The leaf stipules are lanceolate, acute; they fall soon after the leaf expands.
The flowers are pale to bright yellow, rarely orange or reddish, with four ribbon-shaped petals 1–2 cm (1⁄2–3⁄4 in) long and four short stamens, and grow in clusters; flowering begins in about mid-fall and continues until late fall. The flower calyx is imbricate in bud, deeply four-parted, very downy, and orange brown within. The calyx and the pollinated ovary are persistent during the winter months. Two or three bractlets appear at base. The fruit is a hard woody capsule 10–14 mm (0.39–0.55 in) long, which splits explosively at the apex at maturity one year after pollination, ejecting the two shiny black seeds up to 10 m (33 ft) distant from the parent plant. It can be distinguished from the related Hamamelis vernalis by its flowering in fall, not winter.[2][3][4][5]
