hazel alder

Alnus serrulata · Betulaceae · all Alnus records · also called Smooth alder · Wikipedia

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Yes, hazel alder is rated fire resistant, with several sources calling it low in flammability and one giving it a moderate Firewise rating.

North Carolina extension sources repeatedly rate hazel alder as low flammability. The 2005 assessment uses Low as the favorable result on a four-level scale, while the 2025 assessment places it among 106 low-flammability plants on a three-class scale. A live NC State Extension listing also applies the low-flammability tag.

Oregon State University Extension includes smooth alder among fire-resistant plants suited to Willamette Valley growing conditions. Maryland DNR, New Jersey DEP, and West Virginia Division of Forestry list smooth alder among species with stronger resistance to wildfire ignition. They also describe it as tolerant of wet soils, shade intolerant, and short-lived. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs offer a more qualified judgment: 2 on a four-level scale, labeled “Moderately Firewise,” one step below the strongest Firewise rating. This is a weaker endorsement, but not a warning against the plant.

Hazel alder is a shrub in the birch family that reaches about 10 feet at maturity. Its native range covers the Southeastern, Northeastern, North-Central, and South-Central United States. It needs high water and full sun and is hardy to USDA zone 6a. The repeated low-flammability and fire-resistance findings support calling it fire resistant, while the moderate Firewise result keeps that conclusion appropriately measured.

Form: shrub
Mature height: ~10 ft
Light: Full sun
Water need: high
Rated in: Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US +2

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 4 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US; Oregon (Willamette Valley); eastern US
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Firewise Landscaping Plants (Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia editions) · Official scoped edition
- MD; partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-08
  Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
- NJ; partial normalized coverage
  New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
- WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
  West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
- NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26
  The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina site.
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley (EM 9103) · Official scoped edition
- Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
  OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: 2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

30

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

30 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
Connecticut (CT)
District of Columbia (DC)
Delaware (DE)
Florida (FL)
Georgia (GA)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Kentucky (KY)
Louisiana (LA)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Missouri (MO)
Mississippi (MS)
North Carolina (NC)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Oklahoma (OK)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Texas (TX)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record alnus-serrulata · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Alnus serrulata · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley (EM 9103) · EM 9103, February 2015 · as of 2026-08-26

5–9 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Alnus serrulata · exact match.

Source location: Smooth Alder profile (PDF page 155).
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record ALSE2 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 4b · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -23°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Alnus serrulata · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 69928, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Smooth Alder profile (PDF page 155) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: alnus-serrulata [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping Plants: Deciduous Shrubs [Maryland Firewise plant-form tables] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“MODERATELY Firewise (2)”

Large native shrub for warmer wet land areas.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Alnus serrulata (Smooth alder). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/alnus-serrulata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.