The Wild Garden: Hansen's Northwest Native Plant Database

Ceanothus velutinus (Snowbrush, Red Root, Tobacco Brush)

Kingdom	:	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	:	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	:	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	:	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	:	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	:	Rosidae
Order	:	Rhamnales
Family	:	Rhamnaceae – Buckthorn family
Genus	:	Ceanothus L. – ceanothus
Species	:	Ceanothus velutinus Douglas ex Hook. – snowbrush ceanothus

Photo, left, credit: Albert F. W. Vick

This evergreen shrub will greet you with an intoxicating, spicy fragrance when you brush against it or on hot summer days.

It reaches heights of 2-8,’ with dark green, sticky leaves and small white flowers in tidy 5” ‘pom poms.’

Found widely in the West, from British Columbia down through the western United States in USDA zones 7-10.

Snowbrush is a pioneer following fire as the fire stimulates seed germination: another example of nature’s supreme sagacity, as the Snowbrush “fixes” nitrogen and nitrogen is much in demand after the devastation of fire!

For a short comparison of northwest native ceanothus, click here.

Photo, left, credit: Shari Hagwood, BLM; Photo, right, credit: Walter Siegmund

Photo, left, credit: Crow; Photo, right, credit: Matt_Lavin

Photo, left, credit: Walter Siegmund; Photo, center, credit: Terry Glase; Photo, right, credit: Albert F. W. Vick

Photo, center, credit: Walter Siegmund

Photos We Share!

It is our pleasure to share the photographs in this section with you under the Creative Commons License (see link below for details). We retain ownership of the photos but you may use them freely as long as you credit our website for them.

These photos by http://www.nwplants.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.