Fringetree

Chionanthus virginicus

This fringetree peeks over a fence in The Point neighborhood. It’s delicate panicles of strappy flowers hang down emitting its lilac like fragrance on Willow St just off 2nd street.  Native to the bottom-lands of the eastern US, it is considered a small tree often growing as a multi-stem tree.  It is mostly a dioecious species with separate male and female flowers on different individual trees although some plants will produce perfect flowers with both ovaries and anthers capable of producing fruit.  I suspect this plant is a male as the fine lobed petals on males are showier and longer than on females, the anthers haven’t matured and emerged yet making the sex difficult to determine.  Unfortunately, like many dioecious trees such as ginkgo and Osage orange, the male trees are preferred in the landscape as they don’t produce fruit that the females would creating a mess underneath.  It is a shame that this species falls in this category as the bluish-purple drupes produced by female trees give this tree a lovely late summer into the fall show and are great for the local wildlife as they forage in preparation for winter.