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Cherry-Laurel

Prunus caroliniana · Rosaceae · all Prunus 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: Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: 1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Austin, Texas; Marin County, California; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US; eastern US
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
- Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
  The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
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 (Travis County) · Official scoped edition
- Travis County, Austin area (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2024-01-16
  Texas A&M AgriLife Extension publishes this page through its Travis County horticulture program. FireApproved publishes 56 exact owners and retains the source's zone and warning conditions. This is county/Austin regional context, not a second statewide Texas table or site clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AL, AR, CA, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, TX, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX.
Introduced / established: 1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

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.

Cherry-Laurel (Prunus caroliniana) — Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
USDA hardiness: Only uncertain or inapplicable source rows; no primary zone projected
Mature height: ~25 ft
Light: Full sun
Current cited native range: AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX
Grows in: AL, AR, CA, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA +9
Rated in: Austin, Texas; Marin County, California; NC; North Carolina +2
Family: Rosaceae
Evidence: 6 cited sources

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

9

exact source areas

Current introduced

1

exact source area

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

9 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
Florida (FL)
Georgia (GA)
Louisiana (LA)
Mississippi (MS)
North Carolina (NC)
South Carolina (SC)
Texas (TX)

1 introduced source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Tennessee (TN)

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record prunus-caroliniana · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 7 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Prunus caroliniana · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

irrigated: Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County evidence row

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: prunus-caroliniana [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (mid-scale rating)
Firewise Landscaping: Small trees/Large Shrubs [Travis County Firewise page sections] (with its avoid rating)

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)

Firewise Landscaping (Travis County) — Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Travis County · page modified 2024-01-16 · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

“Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”

Listed as Cherry Laurel — Prunus caroliniana. The page says Zone 1 entries should be restricted to zones 2 or 3; all-zone entries are highly flammable due to volatile oils or growth habit.

Mid-scale / conditional (4)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“AT RISK Firewise (3)”

Semi- evergreen small tree.
Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596) — NC State University / NC Cooperative Extension + USFWS (Bardon, Van Druten) · 2005 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree

“Medium flammability rating”
Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) — NC State Extension (Kays, Fawcett, Query, Thompson-Welch, Bardon) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

“medium flammability”
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — plant profiles and flammability ratings — NC State Extension (plants.ces.ncsu.edu) · live facet capture accessed 2026-08-23 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

“medium flammability” · original source

NC Toolbox facet capture lists "Prunus caroliniana" under the medium flammability tag.

Fire-resistant trees instead

American sweetgum
Liquidambar styraciflua

Lombardy poplar
Populus nigra 'Italica'

Boxelder
Acer negundo

Thornless honeylocust
Gleditsia triacanthos

Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana

Smooth sumac
Rhus glabra

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

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

Prunus caroliniana (Cherry-Laurel). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/prunus-caroliniana/. Last verified 2026-08-23.