FireApproved

United States / Grow / swamp doghobble

swamp doghobble (Leucothoe racemosa)
Photo: (c) inbetweenbays, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

swamp doghobble

Leucothoe racemosa (accepted: Eubotrys racemosa) · Ericaceae · all Leucothoe records · also called Sweetbells leucothoe · Wikipedia

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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.

Leucothoe racemosa anchors keep away recommendation. Then limited evidence on Leucothoe racemosa. The facts stay as separate jobs — Leucothoe racemosa. On leucothoe racemosa, avoid does not replace limited evidence. Leucothoe racemosa is the taxon those two facts attach to.

Leucothoe racemosa also carries same form alternatives.

Use evidence on Leucothoe racemosa. The jumps stay with Leucothoe racemosa. On leucothoe racemosa, avoid sits with limited evidence on Leucothoe racemosa. The table for leucothoe racemosa still names Leucothoe racemosa.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Form
shrub
Mature height
~13 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Uses
screen
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Evidence regions
Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source
  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA, MA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, NY, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA.
Native range
The legacy compatibility field lists VA in native range; its field-level source was not retained.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3b; 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.

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.

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

highbush blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum American witchhazel
Hamamelis virginiana common winterberry
Ilex verticillata southern arrowwood
Viburnum dentatum coastal sweetpepperbush
Clethra alnifolia mapleleaf viburnum
Viburnum acerifolia

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Same genus in the directory · the Leucothoe group page

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

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

Leucothoe racemosa (Sweetbells leucothoe). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/leucothoe-racemosa/. Last verified 2026-08-23.