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Oregon Boxwood

Paxistima myrtifolia (accepted: Paxistima myrsinites) · Celastraceae · all Paxistima 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: Fire-resistant — 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: Oregon (Willamette Valley); Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho)
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source

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 AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, OR, TX, UT, WA, WY.
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: 2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

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: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
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.

Form: shrub
USDA hardiness: Applicable source statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each source
Grows in: AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, OR, TX +3
Rated in: Oregon (Willamette Valley); Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho)
Family: Celastraceae
Evidence: 2 cited sources

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.

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: Paxistima myrtifolia · exact match.

Source location: Oregon Boxwood profile (PDF page 141).
Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · record broadleaf-evergreens:Oregon boxwood · 2023-10 · as of 2026-08-26

5–8 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Paxistima myrtifolia · exact match.

Source location: Oregon boxwood profile, USDA hardiness zones field.

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.

Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Oregon Boxwood profile (PDF page 141) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant plant profile galleries: Oregon boxwood — Paxistima myrtifolia [osu-2023-broadleaf-evergreens-gallery] (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.

Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF ·

Paxistima myrtifolia (Oregon Boxwood). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/paxistima-myrsinites/. Last verified 2026-08-25.