FireApproved

United States / Grow / leatherleaf

leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata)
Photo: (c) Aurelijus Narbutas, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

leatherleaf

Chamaedaphne calyculata · Ericaceae

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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.

Chamaedaphne calyculata has both native and introduced records in range evidence. That split leads the leatherleaf profile and keeps the two geographic categories visible.

The plant carries an avoid recommendation in the evidence table, with the fire-source pack marked limited evidence. These statements retain their cited scope rather than borrowing support from the broader range account.

Two climate assertions can be traced through hardiness evidence. Same-form alternatives are collected under related plants, giving the avoid finding a practical comparison route while leaving the alternatives' evidence separate from the leatherleaf record.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Form
shrub
Mature height
~8 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
high
Rated in
eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
eastern US

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, CT, DC, DE, IA, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, VT, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, CT, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, VT, WI.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 4a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

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

22

exact source areas

Current introduced

1

exact source area

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

22 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
1 introduced source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • 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.

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.

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.

Avoids (1)

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

common snowberry
Symphoricarpos albus American witchhazel
Hamamelis virginiana common winterberry
Ilex verticillata common ninebark
Physocarpus opulifolius New Jersey tea
Ceanothus americanus common buttonbush
Cephalanthus occidentalis

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

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

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

Chamaedaphne calyculata (Leatherleaf). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/chamaedaphne-calyculata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.