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Camphor Laurel

Cinnamomum camphora · Lauraceae · all Cinnamomum records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Global; New South Wales, Australia; Tasmania, Australia
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, CA, FL, GA, HI, LA, MS, NC, PR, SC, TX, VI.
Native range
No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports; set a location to distinguish exact from regional context.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
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.

Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora)
Photo: (c) mfeaver, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by mfeaver (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
tree
Grows in
AL, CA, FL, GA, HI, LA, MS, NC +4
Rated in
Global; New South Wales, Australia; Tasmania, Australia
Family
Lauraceae
Evidence
19 cited sources

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 (2)

Listed without a rating (17)

Fire-resistant trees instead

American sweetgum
Liquidambar styraciflua White ash
Fraxinus americana Lombardy poplar
Populus nigra 'Italica' Boxelder
Acer negundo Thornless honeylocust
Gleditsia triacanthos Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Same genus in the directory · the Cinnamomum group page

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

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

Cinnamomum camphora (Camphor Laurel). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/cinnamomum-camphora/. Last verified 2026-08-23.