Eastern Redbud: Spring's Early Pleasing Pastel of Magenta Pink

Cercis canadensis is commonly known as Eastern redbud. Cercis canadensis is in the family Fabaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the bean family, legume family, pea family, or pulse family. An older family synonym, Leguminosae, recognizes the family’s typical fruit, which are termed legumes or pods.

Eastern redbud is the official tree of the state of Oklahoma.

Described as a large shrub or a small tree, Eastern redbud gloriously blazes in early spring throughout its native habitat in eastern North America. Its native southern extent is in northern Florida, from which point its pleasing pastel hues sweep westwards through Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, and northwards into the province of Ontario in east central Canada.

Externals: What Eastern redbud looks like

Eastern redbud flowers are striking (showy) in their pink or magenta clusters of four to eight, profusely arrayed throughout the tree, on old branches, young branches, and even the trunk. Eastern redbuds love to bloom as they produce a plethora of flowers even at a young age. Flowers emerge ahead of the tree’s foliage.

Eastern redbud fruit unmistakably resembles flattened pea pods. They measure two to three inches (5 to 7.6 centimeters) in length and about 0.5 inches (1.3 centimeters) in width. As they mature, Eastern redbud fruits changes color from green to dark brown. Pods are populated by four to ten small seeds, which typically are brown in color.

Leaf shape is simple, so their endearing heart-shaped outline does not have the indented lobes, for example, of oak leaves. Their width and length tend to range from three to five inches (7.6 to 12.7 centimeters). Five to nine conspicuous veins are palmate (Latin: palmatus “hand-shaped”), meaning that they radiate from one point, the base. Another prominent feature of the leaves is their long, slender petiole (Latin: petiolus “little foot,” diminutive of pes “foot”), the small stalk which attaches the leaf blade (lamina, from Latin for “thin sheet of metal”) to the stem (leaf axil).

Leaf arrangement on the stem (phyllotaxis, Greek: phýllon "leaf” + táxis "arrangement") is alternate, meaning leaves are attached singly and alternate sides, in a zigzag growth pattern, as they emerge along the stem.

When first budding, leaves are bright green with red tinges. By maturity their color is dark green.

The leafy, spreading branches of the Eastern redbud trace an outline that is broad with a flat-topped crown. The trunk divides into large branches at a close distance to the ground.

As a deciduous tree, Eastern redbud sheds its leaves seasonally in a process called abscission (Latin: ab “away” + scindere “to cut”). Their autumn color, signalling abscission, is yellow green. Sometimes their autumn foliage takes on a striking, bright yellow color.

Bark generally ranges from red brown to dark brown in color. Older branches present dark brown or grey scaly plates under which orange inner bark is revealed by light exfoliation.

With a maximum height of 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters), Eastern redbud is an understory, a small tree that easily grows in the shade of taller trees below the forest canopy (the topmost area of the forest habitat as delineated by the crowns of the tallest trees). Its spreading branches, spreading outwards to a full width of 25 to 35 feet (7.6 to 10.6 meters), often make its width exceed its height.

Wildlife appeal

Wildlife find Eastern redbud to be edible and browsable. In spring and summer white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) graze on Eastern redbud foliage and twigs. Bark, buds, and seeds are infrequently consumed by squirrels (family Sciuridae). Seeds are eaten by bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus).

Eastern redbud nectaries (glandlike organs secreting nectar, the sugar-rich liquid source for honey) elude short-tongued bees, such as those in the genera of Andrena, Colletes (plasterer bees), Halictus, Macropis, and Prosopis in North America. Instead, Eastern redbud trees enlist long-tongued bees, such as the carpenter bee (genus Xylocopa), as their pollinators.

Caterpillars of the Io moth (Automeris io) feed on Eastern redbud leaves.

Culinary and medicinal ethnobotany: Usage in southern Appalachia and by Native Americans

The bark was boiled by such Native American tribes as the Alabama, Cherokee, Delaware, Kiowa, and Oklahoma for the treatment of whooping cough.

Native Americans also prepared an astringent (Latin: astringere, from ad “to” + stringere “draw tight”) from the bark for treating dysentery.

Other medicinal applications included treating congestion, fever, and vomiting through infusions (Latin: infundere, from in “in” + fundere “pour, spread”) prepared from steeping Eastern redbud inner bark and roots.

A culinary use, which is still appreciated in modern times, was Eastern redbud flower fritters. Flowers are still popular today raw in salads, boiled, or incorporated into pickle relish.

Seeds may be roasted, and the pods may be sautéed.

Eastern redbud twigs, when green, are a traditional seasoning in wild game such as opossum and venison in southern Appalachia. For this reason the alternative name for Eastern redbud there is the spicewood tree.

Redbud legends: The Judas tree

A relative of the Eastern redbud is the European redbud (Cercis siliquastrum), which is often referred to as the Judas tree. Cercis siliquastrum is native to the Mediterranean region, from southern Europe to western Asia.

According to myth, it was from the branches of a European redbud tree that Judas Iscariot, the apostle who is identified as the betrayer of Jesus in the New Testament, hanged himself.

Another explanation for this unpleasant association is that the common name, Judas Tree, is a corruption of the common name for the species in French, arbre de Judée (“tree from Judea”), which identifies the area where the tree proliferates.

“When the red-bud blooms in the spring. . . .My heart will sing”

May Frink Converse (1877-1957) was a Kansan poet whose husband, Asa Finch Converse (September 11, 1875-November 13, 1942), was an esteemed editor, publisher, and state representative (13^th District, 1935-1937-1939-1941). One of May’s poems, entitled “Red-Bud,” published in Contemporary Kansas Poetry in 1927, honored the Eastern redbud’s genus, Cercis.

Although the poem seems to suggest the sad legend, mentioned above, linking one of its species, Cercis siliquastrum, with the suicide of Judas Iscariot, the great truth of Cercis canadensis is that its pastel outburst in early spring fills the hearts of its beholders with the “sheer rapture” of singing.

"Red-Bud" by May Frink Converse

I will go, I said, to the country

When the red-bud blooms in the spring

And then, as of old, for sheer rapture

My heart will sing.

The red-bud rosily blossomed

In valley and hill and plain,

And yet my heart could not banish

Its sense of pain.

My special thanks to talented photographers/concerned organizations who generously make their fine images available on the internet.

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Converse, May Frink. “Red-Bud.” In: Helen Rhoda Hoopes, Contemporary Kansas Poetry. Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Co., 1927, p. 31.

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Copyright Sunday, May 1, 2011 by Derdriu. Updated Wednesday, March 21, 2012.