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United States / Grow / smooth Solomon's seal

smooth Solomon's seal (Polygonatum commutatum)
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

smooth Solomon's seal

Polygonatum commutatum (accepted: Polygonatum biflorum) · Asparagaceae · all Polygonatum records · also called Solomon’s seal · syn. Polygonatum commutatum · 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.

Smooth Solomon's seal is rated fire resistant, with an Idaho score that carries specific planting-distance advice.

Idaho lists Polygonatum commutatum as Solomon's seal and scores its fire resistance at eight. The accompanying chart connects eight with a suggested minimum separation of thirty feet from a home. Reading that distance alongside the number gives a gardener a more concrete use for the score than treating it as a general mark of quality.

Colorado's ignition-resistant plant guide prints eight for the same scientific name. Its scale runs from the most ignitable plants at zero to the least ignitable at ten. The publication credits Idaho's methodology, so matching numbers should not be mistaken for two unrelated experiments.

The Pacific Northwest extension guide also recommends Polygonatum commutatum, using the name Solomon's seal. Together, the regional guidance and numerical assessments support selecting it for a fire-resistant landscape. Preserve Idaho's stated distance when using that assessment to place the plant; the favorable score and its placement guidance were published together. The Northwest guide also calls for watering to sustain healthy growth and clearing away dead branches and spent flowers, leaves and stems.

Form
perennial
Rated in
Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; OR/WA/ID; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); southern Idaho / Intermountain
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; OR/WA/ID; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); southern Idaho / Intermountain
Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources
  • Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
    • CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01

      Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.

  • Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
    • Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08

      The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · Official scoped edition
    • ID, OR, WA; partial normalized coverage · 2023-10-01

      The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
USDA hardiness
Documented range 3–9.

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.

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 (4)

Same genus in the directory · the Polygonatum group page

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

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

Polygonatum commutatum (Solomon’s seal). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/polygonatum-commutatum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.