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Culture

Grow in average, dry to medium moisture, well-drained soil in full sun. Prefers a sandy clay soil and will tolerate drought once established.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Cercocarpus montanus is a woody shrub which grows up to 12' tall. It vase-like shape and silvery seed plumes are perhaps its most outstanding features. Early summer flowers are insignificant, but give way to fruits (hard nutlets) with long, attractive, silvery-white, feathery tails which cover the shrub in late summer. Commonly called mountain mahogany because the bark is a red mahogany color. Green foliage turns russet in the fall. A native American shrub or small tree which grows in certain dry, chaparral, foothill and lower mountain regions of the West (central Rockies and Sierras from California to Washington).