American Witch Hazel

Hamamelis virginiana Origin: Pennsylvania Improvement status: Wild Seeds per packet: ~12 BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED Life cycle: Perennial A well-known native medicinal shrub, American witch hazel is also regularly used as a landscaping plant for its striking yellow blossoms which unfurl — by some witchy plant magic — in early winter, just as nearly every other plant is going to sleep. The name is actually said to derive from the long tradition of using a branch of the plant as divining rods for "dowsing" for water (using sticks to divine where the best place is to dig a well, since the twigs are said to bend slightly downward water over a good spot, and the Middle English word "wiche" means "pliant or bendable"!). The plants can reach 15 or 20 feet high and 10 feet wide. It's a charming ornamental, but it's almost miraculous as a medicinal plant. The great people at Plants for a Future (PFAF.org) have amassed this long list of the ample medicinal qualities of witch haze