Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Rosales > Rhamnaceae > Ceanothus > Ceanothus americanus

Ceanothus americanus (new jersey tea; Jersey tea; jerseytea)

Synonyms:
Language: French

Wikipedia Abstract

Ceanothus americanus is a species of shrub native to North America. Common names include New Jersey tea, Jersey tea ceanothus, variations of red root (red-root; redroot), mountain sweet (mountain-sweet; mountainsweet), and wild snowball. New Jersey Tea was a name coined during the American Revolution, because its leaves were used as a substitute for imported tea.
View Wikipedia Record: Ceanothus americanus

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Screening - Summer [2]  Dense
Screening - Winter [2]  Moderate
Bloom Period [2]  Late Spring
Drought Tolerance [2]  High
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [2]  Medium
Flower Type [3]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [2]  4 months
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Fall
Growth Form [2]  Multiple Stem
Growth Period [2]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Slow
Leaf Type [3]  Deciduous
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Propagation [2]  Bare Root, Container, Seed
Root Depth [2]  14 inches (36 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Seed Vigor [2]  Low
Seeds Per [2]  112000 / lb (246917 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Semi-Erect
Structure [3]  Shrub
Usage [3]  A green dye is obtained from the flowers; A cinnamon-coloured dye is obtained from the whole plant; A red dye is obtained from the root; The flowers are rich in saponins, when crushed and mixed with water they produce an excellent lather which is an effective and gentle soap; They can be used as a body wash (simply rub the wet blossoms over the body) or to clean clothes; The flowers were much used by the North American Indians as a body wash, especially by the women in preparation for marriage, and they leave the skin smelling fragrantly of the flowers;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Flower Color [2]  Blue
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Brown
Height [3]  3.936 feet (1.2 m)
Width [3]  39 inches (1 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [2]  USDA Zone: 4 Low Temperature: -30 F° (-34.4 C°) → -20 F° (-28.9 C°)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Shady
Soil Acidity [2]  Mostly Acid
Soil Fertility [2]  Infertile
Water Use [2]  Low
View Plants For A Future Record : Ceanothus americanus

Protected Areas

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Acmaeodera ornata[5]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 7Robertson, C. Flowers and insects lists of visitors of four hundred and fifty three flowers. 1929. The Science Press Printing Company Lancaster, PA.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0