🌿Plant Allies 🌿. Eastern Redbud (native)
AKA. Spice wood tree, American Judas tree,
🌱If you know of any other names for Eastern redbud, esp. native named, please share.
Eastern redbud is a legume(you can tell by the flowers and pods) /tree native to the eastern US, parts of Canada, and a population in central Eastern Mexico.(Cercis canadensis var. mexicana) The tree flowers around April. (When the pic above was taken) and for some reason the flowers may grow from the trunk. They’re understory trees who are pollinated by long tongue bees and are hosts to multiple butterfly and moths. Thier heart ♥️ shaped leaves turn yellow/orange in fall.
Redbud have been bred into dozens of cultivars, including a weeping willow-ish one called “golden falls”. An example may be in my photo.
The flowers and seeds are edible and are traditional food for the locals. Green twigs are used as seasoning in traditional Appalachian cuisine. The bark was used in medicine.
Genus name Cercis is from the Greek Kerkus “weaver’s shuttle”.
It’s the state tree of Oklahoma
The name Judas tree comes from its family member, C. siliquastrum, which, according to some folk belief, was the tree Judas hung himself on. This I’d from a mistranslation of Judea’s tree. That name comes from the former abundance of Cersis trees in the region(mountainous region of the Levant, now the location of Israel and the West Bank).
Cersis in Turkey. Royalty, wealth, power.
Christian lore. Consequences of temptation. It was believed the nectar was an opiate for bees and they would o.d.
Wikipedia: eastern RedBud
Plant. Native. Eastern Redbud
Photo taken by op at The Grape Discovery Center.
