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Kwanzan flowering cherry

Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan' (accepted: Prunus serrulata) · 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: 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: Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Global; Michigan / Great Lakes; New Zealand; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; 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

Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · Official scoped edition
- MI; partial normalized coverage · 2007-01-01
  Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
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.
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 CA, DC, DE, MA, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: 1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented range 5–7.

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.

Documented conflict. Curated sources lean toward recommending it (the Eastern US Fire Performance Plant Selector and Michigan's E2948 list), but direct fire evidence disagrees (New Zealand's FENZ laboratory directory). Lab and field results are never outvoted by curation here — read both sides below and treat it conservatively near structures.

▲ the Eastern US Fire Performance Plant Selector ▲ Michigan's E2948 list ▼ New Zealand's FENZ laboratory directory · fire-tested

Computed class: Mixed evidence (disputed) — derived from the cited evidence by a published rule, never hand-assigned. Each chip above is one independent primary-evidence lineage and its direction. No plant is fireproof; condition and placement govern. Zone 0 is hardscape regardless.

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.

Kwanzan flowering cherry (Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan') — Photo: (c) W Rao, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
USDA hardiness: 5–7
Mature height: ~25 ft
Light: Full sun
Grows in: CA, DC, DE, MA, MD, NJ, OH, PA +1
Rated in: Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Global; Michigan / Great Lakes; New Zealand +3
Family: Rosaceae
Evidence: 10 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.

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

Source prints 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan' · 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.
Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · record tree:Prunus serrulata · New, January 2007 · as of 2026-08-26

5–7 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Prunus serrulata · accepted name match.

Source location: Table 1, tree 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 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its recommendation)
Canberra Plant Selector: filtered result page 9 [canberra-selector] (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.

Avoids (1)

Low Flammability Plants directory — Fire and Emergency New Zealand (plant flammability testing at Lincoln University) · 2026 · original source Primary evidence Lab-tested lineage: lincoln-nz-tree

“High flammability”

High flammability classification. On FENZ's high-flammability environmental weeds list (2024 DOC list).

Listed without a rating (4)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

4 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “ignition frequency (%): 66.7” · score 66.7 (FLAMITS — ignition frequency (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 1483; Ignitability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “maximum sample temperature (°C): 232.3” · score 232.3 (FLAMITS — maximum sample temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 1677; Combustibility measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “burning duration (s): 3.7” · score 3.7 (FLAMITS — burning duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1871; Sustainability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
- “estimated burnt biomass (%): 3.3” · score 3.3 (FLAMITS — estimated burnt biomass (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 2065; Consumability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND. Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.

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Fire-resistant trees listed above

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

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

Prunus serrulata 'Kwanzan' (Kwanzan flowering cherry). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/prunus-serrulata-kwanzan/. Last verified 2026-08-23.