The bright yellow flowers grow in clusters, have four parts, and have ribbon-shaped petals about one inch long. H. virginiana blooms in about mid fall and continues until late fall.
Foliage:
Alternate, simple, obovate or oval, four to six inches long, unequal at base, wavy-toothed, acute or rounded at apex. Feather-veined; midrib stout with six to seven pairs of primary veins. They come out of the bud involute, covered with stellate rusty down; when full grown, are dark green above, paler beneath; midrib and veins more or less hairy. In autumn they turn yellow with rusty spots. Petioles stout, half an inch to an inch long. Stipules lanceolate, acute, infolding the buds.
Fruit:
The fruit is a hard woody capsule about ½ an inch long, which explodes and launches two shiny black seeds up to 30 feet when it is mature.
Please contribute!This page is a profile for the plant species Hamamelis virginiana, used to collect records of where and when this plant was observed blooming, and for providing identification information for use in dichotomous keys. If you would like to help collect data for this or other plants, see Bloom clock project/How to Contribute for orientation.
