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Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Native Plants < Native Plant Database < Celtis laevigata
The Elm Family has a deep connection to American history. Many cities in the north and south lined their streets and neighborhoods with American Elms, whose wide vase-like canopies created magnificent, shady living arches over traffic and passers by. This unique and tranquil image was marred by the introduction of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1930s, and American streets have never quite looked as romantic since.
All too often, landscapers and unknowing gardeners make the mistake of planting Chinese Elms without taking advantage of the fact that excellent Elm relatives, native to the eastern US, perform much better, less invasively, and provide for native wildlife. Sugar Hackberry provides all of these functions. It also makes an excellent replacement for Bradford Pear, which is native to China, has smelly flowers, and fractures easily during windstorms. Sugar Hackberry offers a large amount of shade, sweet berries, and a graceful form that given time can resurrect the long-lost image of the living arches.
Ulmaceae (Elm)
A large-sized tree with smooth, muscled, cool gray bark and a wide, vase-shaped crown. Leaves are alternate, simple, deciduous, 2 ½-5” long, 1-2 ½” wide. They are light green above, paler below, and the petioles are slender, smooth and about 1/3” long. Trees are monoecious, flowers are small and inconspicuous. The sweet fruits are date-like in flavor and ripen from red to almost black-brown in autumn.
60-80 feet tall and 40-60 feet wide
A medium-sized tree with a mature trunk 2-3 feet in diameter. It has a broad open crown with branches being pendulous at their tips.
Moderate
Sun to light shade
Sugar Hackberry is indifferent of soil type and also transplants well. Oddly, it tolerates wet spots as well as drought and is therefore versatile. One important thing to note is that the leaf litter of this tree tends to prevent the germination and growth of other plant species; if space is an issue, make sure to give this tree plenty of room.
Assets include the bright yellow fall foliage, the wide, arching shape of the canopy, the dense shade it provides, and the attractive beech-like bark in the winter.
Sugar Hackberry tolerates a wide variety of soils, moisture, and drought. Its dense and wide crown provides substantial shade and may be used as a specimen in the front lawn. Another use is to plant it in rows along driveways or streets to allow the wide arms to arch over streets as Americans used to do with American Elms prior to Dutch Elm Disease. Sugar Hackberry is also often used often along streets and parks for shade because of its versatility.
The leaves are eaten by a variety of insects, such as the caterpillars of the Mourning Cloak as well as the spectacular Io Moth. The caterpillar of the Io Moth is especially intriguing, with neon lime-green fluffy spines, and the adult moths are large and have enormous neon yellow eyespots. The sweet fruits last throughout the fall and winter and are an integral component of the diets of migrating and overwintering birds and mammals.
Sugar Hackberry ranges from Maryland to Southern Illinois south down to Texas and Florida. This tree likes rich bottomlands, alluvial flats, stream banks, and slopes.
Stratified or scarified seed, semi-hardwood cuttings.
Also known as Sugar Hackberry,
Southern Hackberry,
Hackberry,
Sugarberry
Compiled by Kevin Tarner, Georgia Wildlife Federation
Photos (c) 2002 Steven J. Baskauf
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