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United States / Grow / northern spicebush

northern spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
Photo: (c) Alison Northup, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

northern spicebush

Lindera benzoin · Lauraceae · also called Spicebush · Wikipedia

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

Northern spicebush is rated fire resistant, with extension guidance from four states reaching the same practical conclusion.

NC State’s extension service, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2005, gave northern spicebush the lowest category on a four-level flammability scale. NC State again called it low in 2025, and its live Plant Toolbox also carries that classification. Ohio State University Extension placed the shrub in the low band of its five-point scale, while Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech assigned it the low rating on a three-point scale. Although the scales differ, low is the recommended category in each one.

The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension and Kentucky Division of Forestry approached the question through planting guidance rather than a graded scale. They named spicebush among the trees and shrubs that work well in defensible space. That practical recommendation agrees with the low-flammability ratings from North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

Northern spicebush is a shrub in the Lauraceae family and reaches about eight feet at maturity. The shrub is hardy to USDA zone 5a; choose a site in part sun and provide moderate water. Across the separate grading systems and Kentucky’s planting guidance, the conclusion remains steady: northern spicebush is a fire-resistant landscaping choice.

Form
shrub
Mature height
~8 ft
Light
Part sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Kentucky; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; NC; North Carolina +4
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
4 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Kentucky; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 5 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.

  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

  • Save Your Home from Wildfire (ForFS 17-01) · Official scoped edition
    • KY; partial normalized coverage · 2017-01-01

      University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension and the Kentucky Division of Forestry publish this small-woodland guidance for Kentuckians. FireApproved exposes its 13 exact species or genus owners while retaining the prose-example grain. It is not a scored or comprehensive state table.

  • 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, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, 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, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WV.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 4b; 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

32

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

32 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)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • 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.

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.

Recommends (7)

Corroboration (3 rows from 3 sources)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Guides that discuss this plant

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

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

Lindera benzoin (Spicebush). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/lindera-benzoin/. Last verified 2026-08-23.